MIND, MATTER, MATHEMATICS, & MORTALITY MEDITATIONS ON A MOMENTOUS METAPHYSICAL THEORY
Dr. N!N S. AMEN-RA, Dr.PH, MA
MIND, MATTER, MATHEMATICS, & MORTALITY MEDITATIONS ON A MOMENTOUS METAPHYSICAL THEORY
MIND
MATTER
M4
MATH
MORT
Dr. N!N S. AMEN-RA, Dr.PH, MA
AMENTA PRESS ! MMXI Damascus, Maryland USA www.AmentaPress.com
[email protected] www.AmentaEliteAthlete.com
[email protected]
INITIATORY INSIGHTS CHAPTER I MUSINGS ON THE MATTER OF MIND
McGinn—Master Mysterian Integral Ingredients Immaterial Monism CHAPTER II WHAT IN THE HELL IS A WAVEFUNCTION & OTHER MUSINGS ON THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF MATTER
The Vapidity of Materiality: The View from Particle Physics The Higgs Ocean & the Mystery of Mass More Massive Mystification The Vapidity of Materiality: The View from Quantum Mechanics Wave Goodbye to Matter "= # +$ Wavefunction Collapse: The Mediation of Mind Nonlocal Nonentities in Supernal Superposition CHAPTER III SUPREME MATHEMATICS
Interpretations of Mathematics The Constitutional Interpretation of Mathematics: The Third Factor in M4 Mathematics & the Hierarchal Nature of Scientific Disciplines
CHAPTER IV COSMOLOGICAL & COSMOGONICAL CONSIDERATIONS
T0 Chaotic Cosmogony Tryon’s Theoretical Triumph: Creatio Ex Nihilo —Quantum Style Initial Conditions The Proto-Percipient Universe N !n , Nous & Numerus : Symbols, Science & Supreme Mathematics CHAPTER V IDEATIONAL ANTECEDENTS
Adherents to Immaterialism The Depths of Mathematics Proto-Percipience: Many Mini Minds Never Mind Matter, Mathematics Modulates Mentation CHAPTER VI ILLUSIONARY IDENTITY & THE MEANING OF MORTALITY
The Modular Mind: The View from Neurology The Modular Mind: The View from Psychiatry Mind, Meditation & Mahapralaya A POPPERIAN PERORATION AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ALLUSIONS
INITIATORY INSIGHTS _______________________________________
The central imperative of the inchoate discipline of Osiriology I is to understand the psychological ramifications of death and apply this understanding in such a way as to assuage the grief of the bereaved. To be bereaved is to be bereft , forcibly deprived of something valued. To most, life is a valued possession and death assumes its inimical character because it eradicates life. Death has many manifestations moreover. As we age and observe the gradual deterioration of our bodies we experience a sort of episodic, incremental death. When individuals are irreconcilably estranged from their families of origin they may experience a sort of familial death. Similarly, divorce can constitute nuptial death. Perhaps most momentous is the evidence that the Universe itself is dying, with matter imperceptibly degenerating, energy irredeemably dissipating and space and time ineluctably expanding into nothingness. This is cosmic death. Even our psyches undergo alterations analogous to death. The mentality of most adults differs dramatically from adolescents and this typical transformation transpires over time. In a sense, the person I was as a youth is no more—he is dead. There is something rather more IOsiriology
is the term originated by the Author to describe the discipline more commonly known as Thanatology. The former is preferred because the Egyptian god Wsir (Osiris), whose myth chronicles his crucifixion, resurrection, and elevation as judge of the dead, symbolizes humanity’s hope for triumph over death. The Egyptian adherent of “Osirianism” did not merely worship Osiris but sought to become a deity by leading a life of supreme virtue in accordance with the Universal Order. %&'&()* (Thanatos), the obscure Greek god of death, was not generally deemed worthy of worship, emulation, or reverence, but merely dread. Only a subjective preference for Greek nomenclature can seemingly justify favoring Thanatology over Osiriology as an emblematic appellation for the systematic study of death. 1
compelling about the concomitant mutability and stability of our sense of self. Cleary, the personality is a product of the brain. The brain is a dynamic organ whose myriad molecules move incessantly in a complex chemical cacophony that boggles the mind. And yet, memories persist and our sense of self subsists. But what sustains the self, what undergirds its existence? Upon what foundation does consciousness rest? Is consciousness reducible to rudimentary matter? This crucial question lies not only at the core of this treatise but at the core of the seemingly discordant dispensations of Western and Eastern philosophy, at the heart of science and ultimately, as shall be argued, at the heart of Osiriology, the study of death. The clearly discernible dichotomy between matter and mind has occupied the thoughts of thinkers great and small for millennia and yet we still lack a compelling explanation for the origin, nature and modulation of consciousness. At the risk of hubris, I shall argue that the answer has revealed itself to me, a theoretical scientist and Osiriologist, one of the plethora of “small” thinkers to which I alluded above. There is little entirely original in my thinking however. I have simply integrated information gleaned from seminal scientific studies, ascertaining their ultimate implications for the philosophy of mind and synthesized data from domains as disparate as Egyptology and atomic physics in an effort to construct a theoretical framework able to illuminate the interrelations among mind, matter, mathematics and mortality. I mustn’t tarry any longer in divulging the elements of our intellectual edifice. The crux of the mystery is that mind manifests itself in a manner that seems immaterial. Nonetheless, the machinations of the mind are unambiguously associated with the operations of the brain. Stated more strongly, the brain and its chemical constituents are the causal basis for consciousness. This much is clear. Now comes the caveat. The chemical constituents of the brain assume a place in a material hierarchy. Its organic molecules are composed of atoms. These atoms are composed of subatomic particles such as protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are composed of fundamental particles called quarks. They are called fundamental because, like the electron that “orbits” the periphery of the atom, they appear to have no deeper substructure. In fact, they appear to be infinitesimal point particles with no spatial extension or 2
dimensionality. If this description is indeed defensible, they are then immaterial. What this may mean is that the supposed matter supporting the seemingly immaterial mind is itself ultimately immaterial . And this is not all. These point particles are not amenable to analysis with the conceptual contrivances of classical physics. Rather, the study of such point particles (or quanta ) requires Quantum Mechanics. Central to Quantum Mechanics are wavefunctions, mathematical formulae whose computations reveal all that is knowable (in a certain sense) about fundamental particles. There is more. But first, it bears mentioning that much has been made of the eerie aspects of Quantum Mechanics by persons such as myself having no formal training in theoretical physics or mathematics. We learned laymen must therefore rely on the interpretations of experts in the field in order to avoid imprudent intellectual excesses. I have done just this…and frankly, it is still eerie. What I speak of are the experiments, exacting and audacious, which indicate that particles of matter exhibit an awareness of their environment and alter their behavior according to statistically predictable rules that form the basis of the science of Quantum Mechanics. So, we have ostensibly immaterial particles that exhibit a property that can conceivably be called awareness (or Proto-Percipience as I prefer). Clearly we are closer to an understanding of the interrelationship between mind and matter. Added to this is the intriguing argument that wavefunctions and the particles whose properties they describe are in fact identical . Wavefunctions are mathematical constructs. What can it mean for a mathematical construct to constitute a material entity? Well, that material entities are not material at all. This is the destination our speculations seem bound for. The ultimate nature of Number has been a matter of debate since Plato and probably prior to his predecessor Pythagoras. If the infinitesimal elements of which our world is composed are intrinsically mathematical, then another mystery would be appreciably illuminated. These musings are as much numerological as they are mathematical insofar as it seems that numbers have a hidden nature that explains, in part, their uncanny efficacy in describing the world. There is yet more, and it concerns the Cosmos. If matter is immaterial, intrinsically mathematical and exhibits an attribute akin to 3
awareness, ought not the large-scale structure of the Universe offer testament to this? This seems to obtain. We shall evaluate evidence indicating that the aggregate amount of matter and energy in the Universe amounts to nothing . Briefly, this is so by virtue of Einstein’s equation, E=mc2, the precise symmetry between matter and antimatter extant in the early Universe, and the present balance between the positive energy embodied in matter summed with the negative energy emanating from matter’s gravitational effect. Add to this the idea that our Universe evolved from an infinitesimal entity possibly possessing the proto-percipient properties of a quantum particle and immateriality is roundly reinforced. Now, whatever has this to do with death? Death entails the destruction of the self and the dissolution of consciousness. As we shall see, however, neurological research has revealed that the mind of each individual is actually an amalgam of multiple mental modules or entities illusorily integrated in such a way as to simulate psychic unity. The multiplicity of the “individual” mind contravenes the very concept of individuality and accordingly renders the notion of “self” superfluous or fictive. And if the “self” is fundamentally fictive, our fear of death, our fear of self dissolution is therefore misplaced. Can we justifiably fear the destruction of something that does not, in fact, exist? The ascetic sages of ancient India affirmed that consciousness and our cherished sense of self is illusory precisely because it is superficial, a manifestation of an ethereal essence much more fundamental, much more elemental. Perhaps the essence of which they spoke issues forth from fundamental particles. If what we regard as matter exhibits consciousness at its core then the despair that death ordains goes only so deep. Admittedly, this speculation loosely skirts the limits of logic and I can vividly imagine the voice of the incredulous skeptic muttering “Very well, but this doesn’t make me feel any better about dying.” Granted, this knowledge is not likely to assuage the anxiety of most individuals as they grapple with the ponderous problem of death. Indeed, the ancient Indian prescription has always been unpalatable to the masses: Suffering engendered by the intimation of death ensues when one erroneously regards the psyche as the substance of one’s being; desist in this deleterious delusion and 4
identify not with the transient, transmogrifying psyche but with the enduring, adamantine essence of consciousness and suffering shall surely cease. Nothing in the foregoing discussion alters the essential wisdom of this proclamation. The line of thinking I have delineated does however provide a more empirical evidentiary edifice upon which to uphold ancient wisdom adopted from the Indian doctrines of Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, Buddhism and Jainism and certain of their Western ideational analogues—Platonism, Pythagoreanism, and Epicureanism. It is at least interesting to imagine that the methods of meditation central to certain philosophical systems yielded insights extracted from introspective awareness. Perhaps these insights accord with what we are learning about matter because awareness is an irreducible aspect of matter itself, discernible when one divests oneself of the distractions of conscious cogitation. These and other musings concerning cosmology and eschatology, ideas to be discussed in the pages of this mercifully brief book, somehow make me feel better about death. But such contentment can be problematic, for we should be especially skeptical of those ideas that make us feel better. For whatever has truth to do with feeling ? Let us therefore analyze the ideas enumerated herein with the aforementioned admonition in mind. Finally, it must be acknowledged that this work contains a substantial amount of speculation. Speculation ought not be eschewed outrightly however, especially if it is undergirded by sound science and rigorous reasoning as I affirm this treatise to be. I leave it to my Audience to evaluate the veracity of this claim.
5
…I do not expect any popular approval, or indeed any wide audience. On the contrary I would not urge anyone to read this book except those who are able and willing to meditate seriously with me, and to withdraw their minds from their senses and from all preconceived opinions. Such readers, as I well know, are few and far between. Those who do not bother to grasp the proper order of my arguments and the connection between them, but merely try to carp at individual sentences, as is the fashion, will not get much benefit from reading this book. They may well find an opportunity to quibble in many places, but it will not be easy for them to produce objections which are telling or worth replying to. But I certainly do not promise to satisfy my other readers straightaway on all points, and I am not so presumptuous as to believe that I am capable of foreseeing all the difficulties which anyone may find. —RENÉ DESCARTES I
I
Descartes R. Meditations on First Philosophy , 1641, Preface. Translated by Elizabeth Haldane & G. R. T. Ross, 1952. 6
CHAPTER I MUSINGS ON THE MATTER OF MIND
___________________________________
I maintain that mind is immaterial. This declaration is not likely to strike people as particularly poignant or provocative. So quotidian, so common, is this concept that I shall not undertake an exhaustive evaluation of its veracity. Ideas are essential elements of minds and ideas, we must admit, can scarcely be construed as corporeal. So if minds can be crudely conceived as “containers” for ideas or perhaps considered to consist of ideational impressions engendered by emotions and sensations, this would seem to reinforce our conception of the mind as immaterial. But even when the mind is idle and no ideas effervesce therein, consciousness persists. The mind is ostensibly a matrix within which immaterial ideas emerge and this matrix itself must needs be equally insubstantial, equally immaterial. Introspectively discerned, the mind exhibits the characteristics of continuity, homogeneity and indivisibility. It is this apparent indivisibility of mind that René Descartes (1596-1650) cited in his Meditations as an argument against the incorporeity of mind: [W]e cannot understand a body except as being divisible, while by contrast we cannot understand a mind except as being indivisible. For we cannot conceive of half a mind, while we can always conceive of half a body, however small; and this leads us to recognize that the natures of mind and body are not only different, but in some way opposite.”I Descartes clearly appreciated the essentiality of extensibility to the concept of matter and considered the mind’s lack thereof as an indication of its immateriality: IDescartes R. Meditations
on First Philosophy , 1641, 1952.
7
…[W]hen I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish any parts within myself; I understand myself to be something quite single and complete. Although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, I recognize that if a foot or arm or any other part of the body is cut off, nothing has thereby been taken away from the mind. As for the faculties of willing, of understanding, of sensory perception and so on, these cannot be termed parts of the mind, since one and the same mind that wills, and understands and has sensory perceptions. By contrast, there is no corporeal or extended thing that I can think of which in my thought I cannot easily divide into parts; and this very fact makes me understand that it is divisible. This one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is completely different from the body, even if I did not already know as much from other considerations.I And yet, despite their undeniable dissimilarity, the mind is evidently dependent upon the brain. This issue is complex and of such import that we shall touch upon it many times throughout the course of this investigation. It is clear, however, that the mind does not reside in the brain—the mind, in fact, does not seem to reside anywhere. If one envisions the rings of Saturn, where then is one’s mind? Where is it when one recalls a vivid childhood experience or performs arithmetical calculations in one’s head, or attempts to visualize an atom or contemplate the infinite set of all real numbers? Perhaps we cannot say where the mind resides, but we are justified, it seems, in saying that it does not reside in the space equivalent to a loaf of bread. All this is meant to illustrate the nonlocality of mind, the notion that minds are not localized in the paltry space of the cranial vault. We also feel (some more sensuously or saliently than others perhaps), IIbidem .
8
and this quality of feeling, this sentience , also informs our conception of the mind as immaterial. For there is nothing material about love, longing, grief, guilt, or glee. These are emotions and emotions are not attributable to material entities devoid of minds. We have no reason to believe that rocks or roses repine imperceptibly. If the mind is indeed immaterial, then we have a problem—a problem as profound as any mind can conceive. For it would seem that we inhabit a dichotomous world, a world of material entities bound by space and by physical laws, and, simultaneously, a world of immaterial mental entities bound neither by space nor any (as yet discernible) physical laws. What is more, these two disparate realms must interact with each other in a way that eludes us as a species and has done so since the sagacious scribes of the Nile Valley and the astute ascetics of the Indus Valley sought to systematize soma and psyche , body and mind. That our attempts to understand the relationship between matter and mind have proven so fruitless thus far has led the eminent philosopher Colin McGinn to conclude that the problem is utterly intractable. And if a scholar of such prowess is so insistent about the insolubility of the mind-matter problem, then throwing in the towel might seem prudent. In my humble opinion, however, such intellectual capitulation would be premature. McGinn—Master Mysterian I am incalculably indebted to the intellectual labors of Colin McGinn. He has written more lucidly and thought more deeply on the fundamental “problem” of consciousness than any contemporary theorist known to me. His conviction that the enigma of mind-matter interaction is irremediable (or in his words “cognitively closed” to us) carries considerable weight. The nature of his argument on this matter, assuming I have an adequate understanding thereof, is strikingly simple and straightforward and this, I believe, is one of the keys to the persuasiveness of his position. He accepts the materiality of matter, with all its allegiant properties of ponderosity, solidity, and locality within a lattice of space-time. He also takes into consideration the way consciousness presents itself to us—as immediate, 9
immaterial, non-localized, and sensorily rich. Such properties of mind would seemingly argue for a dualistic conception of mental substance and material substance. But however separate these “substances” seem, they are nonetheless linked. One need only consider the fact that consciousness emerges anew with the birth of each organism possessed of a suitably sophisticated nervous system. Alternatively, one need only consider what we might call the ‘biochemical contingency of consciousness’—the fact that molecular moieties as mundane as sugar or as potent as PCP can, through their influence on the chemical milieu of the brain, alter one’s state of consciousness considerably. Thus the physical substance of the brain succors and sustains the seemingly a physical mind. As McGinn adroitly articulates: How is it possible for conscious states to depend on brain states….How could the aggregation of millions of individually insentient neurons generate subjective awareness? We know that brains are the de facto causal basis of consciousness, but we have, it seems, no understanding whatever of how this can be so. It strikes us as miraculous, eerie, even faintly comic. Somehow, we feel, the water of the physical brain is turned into the wine of consciousness.I How do such radically different substances coexist and correlate? Moreover, how does one (matter) give rise to another (mind) and incessantly so since the emergence of conscious life hundreds of millions of years ago? Clearly there must be a link between the two. Yet this link has proved so elusive that McGinn is convinced that it shall forever confound and evade us. The link is, as he might say, “mysterious”. It is for this reason that McGinn’s position has been given the apt appellation mysteryian . I, for one, am exceedingly impressed by the recondite reasoning of this capable thinker. Indeed, it seems that we are no closer to an understanding of how brains subserve consciousness than the family dog is to an understanding of IMcGinn C.
The Problem of Consciousness , 1993.
10
how currents of electricity heat metallic filaments in bulbs, causing them to emit quanta of light (i.e. photons). And to such a man as me, having been immersed in the quandary of consciousness for his entire intellectual life, this admonition from a formidable philosopher of mind to stop hitting my head against the wall would be a welcomed respite indeed. But I am stubborn and possessed of certain mentally masochistic proclivities. Mysterianism, I am convinced, is not the final word. Integral Ingredients It is difficult to accept the notion that there are two fundamentally distinct, radically dissimilar substances that comprise the world we inhabit, that matter and mind coexist and interrelate. Perhaps because of the triumphs of science in linking space and time, electricity and magnetism, matter and energy, and the exhilarating prospect that theorists are on the verge of unifying the laws of physics, discerning the fundamentum relationis of the forces of Nature, we have come to expect that underlying all is supreme simplicity. Plurality is passé, superseded by Singularity, usurped by Unity. Not surprisingly, the dominant trend in the neurosciences and the quasi-scientific discipline of psychiatry is to regard consciousness and its psychic derivatives as thoroughly physical, thoroughly chemical, if they regard it at all. In defense of these disciplinary domains, it must be conceded that the materialistic view is neither irrational nor radical, especially if one concedes that our understanding of consciousness is incomplete to say the least. Introspection—the inward projection of our powers of perception—gives us immediate and privileged access to the inner workings of consciousness. But immediacy does not imply inerrancy. The window into the soul through which the introspective faculty permits us to peer may be, unbeknown to us, beclouded. Secure in our partial, introspectively acquired knowledge, we are wont to ascribe to consciousness a quality which it perhaps does not possess—namely, immateriality. McGinn maintains that:
11
Conscious states, as they are presented to introspection, seem to call for an ontology of nonphysical substances for them to inhere in. And the feeling that consciousness can be radically detached from the physical world is…comprehensible, though mistaken; it is a natural response to the way consciousness presents itself. For the surface of consciousness does not contain the materials to demonstrate the nature of its necessary connection with physical fact.I In other words, our faculties of introspection might present consciousness to us in such a way as to hide its true nature, giving us the erroneous impression that it is nebulous, ethereal, and immaterial. Deep down, however, this seething mental matrix is marshaled into existence by the machinations of material entities comprising the brain. But this is a leap that I am not prepared to take. For in the vein of René Descartes, nothing is more elemental, more certain, and less open to doubt than consciousness. Several centuries have not negated the Cartesian credo: Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am). All else might be illusory but the fact that I am here and now perceiving something is not open to serious scrutiny. Perception might delude us but introspection is infallible in its guise as the bedrock of being. We all know how fallible our sense faculties can be. We are susceptible to simple optical “illusions”. We perceive, for instance, straight objects as bent when they are immersed diagonally in translucent liquids. Snell’s Law assures us that this effect is attributable to the differential speed with which light propagates through air and liquid, but this fact fails to forestall our slight sense of illusion. Examples abound of how our senses misrepresent the nature of reality. Thus, in order to ascertain all but the most mundane truths we must employ the contrived artifices of science, mathematics, and reason. We cannot, it seems, fully trust the senses in our concerted quest for ultimate truths. But, I must reiterate, there is no reason to regard introspection as similarly suspect. IMcGinn C.
The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World , 1999.
12
Introspection reveals to us qualities of consciousness that bear no relationship to those commonly accorded to corporeal objects— introspection presents consciousness to us as a physical, supra physical, immaterial. I ask the Reader to consider this assessment of consciousness and then reflect on its ineluctable implication: radical dualism. Dualism is something we’d like to avoid if at all possible, if only because it lacks a certain intellectually aesthetic appeal. But how can we escape its grasp (and escape it we must if we are to maintain a modicum of metaphysical equanimity)? McGinn and many others endeavor to achieve this end by subsuming consciousness under the banal banner of the physical. Material monism is their remedy. It matters not that McGinn regards the “psychophysical nexus”, the critical link between mind and brain, as unknowable. He is a materialist inasmuch as he regards consciousness as a thoroughly physical phenomenon, albeit a physical phenomenon we, putatively, can never hope to fathom. Though the superficial features of consciousness may bespeak the immaterial, McGinn might argue, a thorough understanding of the deeper, hidden nature of consciousness would dispel the spectre of immaterialism: &+
But we, alas, are confined to the slippery surface of consciousness, and this surface does not furnish a rich enough conception of consciousness to allow us to understand how consciousness depends necessarily upon the body and brain. So we proceed to detach it from the body, locating it in a mysterious immaterial substance specially manufactured for the purpose. We fall for the mirage consciousness projects. What we should do is pause and ask ourselves whether the surface exhausts the reality; for if it does not, then the hidden part might well contain what is needed to keep
All etymologies and definitions have been taken in part or in toto from The Oxford English Dictionary , Second Edition, 1989 & The Oxford Latin Dictionary , 1983. + [L monismus , f. Gk monos single] &
13
consciousness glued down to the physical world, where it belongs.I McGinn is adamant that consciousness must be “glued down to the physical world”, that it is in the phenomenal, physical Universe that mind “belongs”. The fervency of this philosophical predilection would be quelled, I suspect, if he realized how flimsy the physical world really is. It is no firm nook into which mind may be cozily nestled. For if McGinn regards consciousness as deeply mysterious, he might consider what is known, fundamentally, about matter and the physical world from the vantage of modern science. If ever our unaided sense faculties have been guilty of misrepresenting the true nature of things, it is so with respect to our perception of the physical basis of reality. Nothing is as it seems. Space is neither vacuous nor “smooth”; time is non-local, relativistic, contextual; energy is, paradoxically, both finite and infinite, both positive and negative and capable of producing a plentitude of particles out of the void; and most mysterious of all, matter is both wave and particle, simultaneously, and in its particle guise occupies a paltry volume of 0 radius, extending in no dimensions whatsoever and can be described exhaustively on the basis of a probabilistic mathematical formulation known as a wavefunction, the evolution of which is seemingly dependent on the mediation of “conscious” observers. If we knew the physical world solely through the agency of our unaided senses, we would know precious little. With this in mind, the marriage between the seemingly immaterial mind and the “physical” world—a world revealed by science as fundamentally ethereal, fundamentally aerial—is immeasurably more amicable than once thought. Immaterial Monism My approach to the psychophysical problem may be termed Immaterial Monism insofar as I maintain that the nominally physical brain is capable of generating and supporting or transducing the IMcGinn
C. 1999. 14
effervescence of consciousness precisely because it, itself, is immaterial. In using the word “monism” I mean to convey the same sense and meaning of the term as defined in The Oxford English Dictionary : A theory or system of thought which recognizes a single ultimate principle, being, force, etc., rather than more than one….[A] theory that denies the duality of matter and mind…. I do indeed deny the duality of matter and mind. I must, however, be clear that, though I regard the brain as immaterial, I do not take it to be particularly or inherently special. It is composed of altogether ordinary ingredients—organic molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen and an allotment of inorganic ions including sodium, potassium, and calcium. All such elements originate from the interiors of massive stars as products of intense thermonuclear reactions. Such elements, organic and inorganic, litter the Universe—they are ubiquitous. As my informed Audience undoubtedly knows, atoms of carbon, oxygen, calcium, and hydrogen have substructure. Their nuclei are composed of protons and neutrons and confined to the periphery are electrons. Electrons are fundamental, without deeper substructure. Protons and neutrons are, however, composed of particles called quarks and these are fundamental—so fundamental, in fact, that they are, like the electron, thought to be without spatial extent. To be devoid of dimensionality is to be, from the materialist standpoint, a nonentity. But this is absurd, for matter obviously exists, if only as a figment of the mind. We are, it seems, impelled to invoke immateriality. That which is without substance is void; that which is without spatial extent is immaterial. This picture of the brain as being composed of matter that is fundamentally vacuous, fundamentally immaterial, is one we shall develop in the ensuing chapters and it shall play a crucial part in dispelling the metaphysical perplexity engendered by the ‘mindmatter muddle’.
15
That compounds should be constituted and decomposed by physical forces and according to physical law, that minute particles of matter should be moved hither and thither by the action upon them of other particles…all this is clearly intelligible. But that these same things should be made to happen without any physical substances or physical processes among their causal antecedents, that they should be wrought by something so nebulous as an idea or mental image, by something having no physical property and not even a location, by something that could never enter into the physical description of anything, or into any chemical equation, and in violation of the very physical laws and principles according to which all physical objects such as the brain and its parts operate—that anything like this should happen seems quite unintelligible….One can…always verbally describe human behavior or the activity of the nerves and brain and glands, interlarding the explanations here and there with references to mental or physical processes; but no one can possibly understand what is thus verbally set forth, or form the least conception of how such interaction between wholly disparate realms of being is at all possible. " RICHARD TAYLOR I
But extension is nothing independently and objectively existing. For all our perception of things are within our own souls, which are unextended; and the things exist not but in these perceptions. Extension then exists only in our minds. All the objectivity it has is as a universal law binding on finite intelligences, that they should all perceive in this way. It is a consequence and condition of our limitation as finite souls. " R. D. ARCHER-HIND
I Taylor R. Metaphysics , 1974. IIFrom the Introduction to Archer-Hind’s 1888 translation of Plato’s Timaeus .
16
II
CHAPTER II WHAT IN THE HELL IS A WAVEFUNCTION & OTHER MUSINGS ON THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF MATTER
________________________________________ I maintain that there is no such thing as matter, that there is no such thing as a physical entity, no such stuff as solid substance. In this chapter I intend to establish the vapidity of materiality. First, let us consider the foundation upon which our conception of matter is based. Though matter can be conceived, generally, as anything that comprises the substance of a thing, our notion of matter is, more specifically, commensurate with the definition proffered in The Oxford English Dictionary as: That which has mass and occupies space ; physical substance as distinct from spirit, mind, qualities , etc. [emphases mine]. As we shall come to see, modern physics has revealed that the fundamental constituents of matter are point-like particles with zero radii, devoid of dimensionality. Thus, in stark contrast to our notion of matter as that which “occupies space” physics compels us to concede that our perception of this quality of matter—its extensibility, its volumetric, space-occupying nature—is, in some sense, illusory. Add to this the quantum mechanical picture of particles as constituted by probabilistic mathematical waves and we can no longer reasonably hold on to our common sense notion of the materiality of matter. Likewise, the quality of mass, integral to our notion of matter, is rather tenuous. For prominent physicists now regard mass as epiphenomenal, as a quality that is not intrinsic to “matter” as such, but the result of a particular force, produced by a particular particle, whose effect gives only the appearance of weightiness. Mass, according to this conception, is the result of a field 17
which permeates space and interacts with “material” particles. Thus, our contingent concept of matter as that which has mass is hereby challenged. Indeed, there is ample reason to embrace the idea that what we had hitherto regarded as matter is nothing more than the aggregation of qualities , mere properties—properties of immaterial entities, properties perceived by our minds. Thus, the notion of matter as being “distinct from spirit, mind, qualities , etc.” is open to scrutiny, and scrutinize we shall. The Vapidity of Materiality: The View from Particle Physics It can be reasonably argued that our modern conception of matter originated with the expositions of the Greek-Ionian philosopher, Democritus of Abdera. Democritus is said to have propounded the idea that all matter is composed of indestructible, indivisible elements. It is by virtue of these putative qualities—indestructibility and indivisibility—that the fundamental constituents of matter were given the name &()µ), ( atomos ), which, in Greek, means “indivisible”. It is interesting to note that the word “atom” is Atom identical in form and similar in sense to the Egyptian or Atum . Atom, in Egyptian cosmogony, was a demiurgic deity whose essence was supposed to suffuse the substance of all beings and all things. In this way Atom could conceivably be identified with the substance of the material Universe. Because this cosmogenic theosophy emerged, perhaps, near the dawn of recorded history [c. 5000 BCE] when Greece, the nation-state, was nonexistent, because it apparently presages certain elements of the Democritan school of thought known as Atomism , because Democritus and other Grecian philosopher-scientists are reputed to have studied in Kemet (Egypt) and, finally, because the Greeks borrowed considerably and confessedly from the corpus of Kemetic culture, it is possible that we !
The ambiguity in spelling stems from the fact that the Egyptians ordinarily omitted vowels from written words. In the Egyptian language, or Mdw Ntr (literally ‘the god’s speech’) as it was called, Atom or Atum is transliterated Atm , just as Amen or Amun is rendered Amn . &
18
can trace our quest to uncover the mystery of matter to the speculative musings of mythologists who walked the Valley of the Nile many millennia ago. [Similarly striking is the affinity between the Egyptian Atm and the Sanskrit Atman , the Sanskrit term denoting the elemental essence of Man which inheres in and is identical with the substance of the Universe.] However prescient the Egyptians, Indians, and Greeks were in their conjectures on the nature of matter, their knowledge claims were just that—conjectural. With due deference to our intellectual predecessors, modern science affords us an understanding of the inner workings of matter that the Ancients could never have dreamt. Of course, every succeeding generation since the dawn of modernity can boast of a privileged intellectual status, but ours is superlatively so. For modern scientists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have cut so incisively into the core of matter and peered so probingly into its depths that it is clear that there is no substructure left—matter has been laid bare for all to see, the physicist, the philosopher, and the philistine alike. The basic structure of the atom is known by all educated laymen—the nuclei of atoms being composed of positively charged protons and (typically) equal numbers of neutral neutrons. Negatively charged electrons orbit atomic nuclei at distances far removed from the proton-neutron core, interacting with the electrons of other atoms to produce the rarefied reactions upon which life itself depends. Astonishingly, this familiar picture of the atom is less than a century old. It was not until the first decade of the 20 th century that science afforded humankind a correct bi-laminar description of the atom as consisting of a dense nuclear region about which electrons ambulate. We owe this knowledge to the efforts of Ernest Rutherford, who pioneered a technique that would become critical to the further investigation of atomic and, indeed, sub-atomic structure. The technique is called scattering and factors heavily enough in our present discussion to warrant some digression on its basic features. Rutherford employed a radioactive material which, of course, spontaneously emits particles— alpha particles or helium nuclei in this case. Customarily, in such scattering experiments the radioactive source is ensheathed in an insulative material of some sort (lead for 19
example) leaving only a tiny orifice through which emitted particles may escape. The narrow aperture is then aimed at, say, a thin metallic sheet. The particles emanating from the radioactive material pass straight through the atoms in the metallic sheet for the most part because the peripheral electrons are far too light to impede the trajectory of the comparatively massive alpha particles (which consist of 2 protons and 2 neutrons). Some particles, upon striking the atoms of the metal are deflected back towards the radioactive source at an angle to their initial path. It is this angular deflection that, when properly analyzed, imparts information about the internal architecture of atoms. On the basis of such scattering data Rutherford was able to deduce decisive conclusions about the arrangement of the atom’s constituents. One exoteric science book describes the innovating insight as follows: Rutherford…calculated that the only configuration capable of knocking an alpha particle backward was one in which the entire mass and positive charge were concentrated in a very small volume in the center of a relatively huge (atom-size) sphere….The central positive charge (nucleus) occupies a volume no more than one trillionth of the volume of the atom. According to the Rutherford model, matter is predominantly empty space. When we pound on a table, it feels solid, but it is the interplay of electrical forces…among atoms and molecules that creates the illusion of solidity. The atom is mostly void.I A tiny, positively charged nucleus about which negatively charged electrons orbit, the two regions separated by a huge expanse of empty space. Such is the pedestrian picture of the atom. This sober synopsis is rather too simplistic however. For electrons do not truly “orbit” nuclei in a manner analogous to the way a planet orbits a star. Moreover, electrons are not localized in discrete regions on the ILederman
L & Teresi D. The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? , 1993. 20
periphery of atoms but are spread out in a wavelike manner. What it means for electrons to exhibit a wavelike character we shall discuss in the next section. But electrons can also be freed from ‘atomic incarceration’. Free electrons are localized particles. However, though they can be localized in space, they do not occupy any space. Electrons exhibit no deeper substructure and are thought to be point-like, possessed of no radius (no volume) and no dimensionality. The criterion for designating a particle as fundamental is its lack of deeper substructure. Electrons fit this description and so are considered fundamental, but protons and neutrons do not. Protons and neutrons have substructure. Each is composed of one of two types of quark, whimsically named “up” and “down”. Like the electron, quarks are thought to be fundamental, point-like, zero-radius, non-dimensional particles. I have used the phrase “thought to be point-like” or “thought to be fundamental” in reference to elementary particles because there is no straightforward way of measuring the size of the smallest objects in existence. Against which standard is one to measure? Experimental setups must be extraordinarily subtle. Perhaps this is why the seminal experiment that established the existence and character of quarks employed an equally fundamental particle—the electron—as a measuring device of sorts. The experimental investigations that enshrined the Quark Model commenced in 1967 at two principle locales—the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The daunting complexity of the team’s work is expressed in the very description of their endeavor which, in their words, was aimed at studying “the electro-production of resonances as a function of momentum transfer” by analyzing “large energy loss scattering of electrons from the nucleon (the generic name for the proton and neutron), a process…dubbed deep inelastic scattering”.I II A detailed description of the experiment is beyond the scope of this book and, indeed, beyond the bounds of my knowledge. Fortunately, IFriedman
JI. Deep Inelastic Scattering: Comparisons with the Quark Model ; Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1990. IIKendall HW. Deep Inelastic Scattering: Experiments on the Proton and the Observation of Scaling ; Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1990. 21
one need not be versed in the arcanum of advanced particle physics in order to grasp the profundity of the team’s findings. So important are the implications of their work, that it has been sufficiently summarized and simplified by able authors in such a way as to enable an acceptable understanding thereof. In a most engaging book written by the particle physicist and Nobel Laureate, Leon Lederman, entitled The God Particle , the work of the Stanford/MIT team is described thusly: A series of scattering experiments was undertaken using…electron beams….[T]he objective was a more incisive study of the structure of the proton. The electron at high energy goes in, hits a proton in a hydrogen target, and an electron of much lower energy comes out, but at a large angle to its initial path.I As with Rutherford’s early 20th century scattering experiment, crucial information lay in the analysis of the angular deflection of the incident electron beam. Just as Rutherford’s calculations prompted him to conclude that the positively charged nucleus is confined to a vanishingly small volume of atomic space, thereby permitting the delimitation of its size, so the SLAC team upon analysis of angular deflection (among other data) was able to delimit the size of the proton’s constituents— zero. The proton, they found, is composed of three point-like particles of zero radius. But as Lederman explains in the following excerpt, the SLAC experiment was somewhat subtler than Rutherford’s early scattering experiment: …Rutherford simply bounced alpha particles off the nucleus and measured the angles. At SLAC the process was more complicated. In the language of the theorist and in the mental image evoked by the mathematics, the incoming electron in the SLAC machine sends a messenger photon into [a detection ILederman
& Teresi. 1993. 22
device]. If the photon has the right properties, it can be absorbed by one of the quarks. When the electron tosses a successful messenger photon [one that gets absorbed], the electron alters its energy and motion. In other words, the energy of the outgoing electron tells us something about the messenger photon it threw, and, more important, what ate it. The pattern of messenger photons could be interpreted only as being absorbed by a pointlike substructure in the proton.I [emphasis mine] For this breathtaking discovery the team was awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize for Physics, an honor well deserved. Let us reflect upon this for a moment. Look around you. Look at your body. Apparently, astoundingly, everything we see is composed of elementary entities devoid of any size whatsoever. Electron-like particles (leptons ) and quarks make up the totality of ordinary matter in our observable Universe—there is nothing more to matter. We must be willing to accept that there is nothing physically there but an amorphous energetic halo with myriad perceptible properties, but no size, no volume, no dimensionality. Materiality implies size and, fundamentally, there is none. Materiality also implies mass and, fundamentally, there may be no such thing. &
The Higgs Ocean & the Mystery of Mass Fundamental particles appear to exhibit appreciably different masses. As to why this should be so, scientists presently have no empirically established explanation. They do, however, have theoretically cogent conjectures. Central to their theoretical expositions is the so-called nonzero Higgs Field vacuum expectation value or what physicist Brian Greene refers to as simply the “Higgs ocean”. This elusive ocean is envisaged as a fundamental field filling all of space, interacting with IIbidem . &
[Gk leptos small] 23
elementary particles in alternate ways, opposing their acceleration accordingly. Greene likens this peculiar force field to a vat of molasses and the particles embedded therein to ping-pong balls. It is an instructive metaphor: To accelerate a Ping Pong ball submerged in molasses, you’d have to push it much harder than when playing with it on your basement table—it will resist your attempts to change its velocity more strongly than it does when not in molasses, and so it behaves as if being submerged in molasses has increased its mass. Similarly, as a result of their interactions with the ubiquitous Higgs ocean, elementary particles resist attempts to change their velocities— they acquire mass . [latter emphasis mine]I According to this line of thinking, mass is nothing more than a measure of the ease with which particular particles emanate through the obstructive “ocean” embodied by the Higgs field. Stronglyinteracting elementary particles merely mimic massiveness whereas weakly-interacting ones weave through effortlessly, appearing wellnigh weightless. This is why photons are so fast—they ambulate altogether unimpeded about the ocean and, as such, exhibit no weight whatsoever. Indeed, if there were no Higgs field, no particles would exhibit weight or even elicit the intimation of its existence. So instead of explaining why particles have the masses they appear to have, physicists are wont to explain why particles interact as they do with the Higgs field. The Higgs field has important implications for our understanding of the origins of the Universe, an arena into which we shall delve in Chapter IV. For now it is instructive to appreciate the conditions under which the Higgs field emerged. The primordial point that preceded and produced the Big Bang, we are informed, was intensely hot. As it expanded, however, it cooled. Theoretical IGreene
B. The Fabric of the Cosmos , 2004. 24
analyses indicate that at around a hundredth of a billionth (10-11 ) of a second, the temperature of the Universe would have been a million billion (1015 ) degrees, millions of times hotter than the center of the sun. It is at this juncture that the Higgs field is thought to have “condensed” from the frothy fabric of the incipient Cosmos. In some sense the field existed before this time, though the extreme initial temperatures prevented its manifestation. And so it is with all the fields that mediate the four fundamental forces of Nature—the strong and weak forces, the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force. They all materialized after the cosmic temperature declined to a particular point. This association between force fields and temperature can be intuitively appreciated when one imagines a magnet losing its magnetism when heated to a particular point and spontaneously “remagnetizing” after appreciable cooling. Mass, like magnetism, manifested itself only after considerable cosmic cooling, coincident with the creation (or condensation) of the Higgs field. As Greene explains: Prior to 10-11 seconds [after the big bang], the Higgs field fluctuated up and down but had an average value of zero….[A]t such temperatures a Higgs ocean couldn’t form because it was too hot. The ocean would have evaporated immediately. And without a Higgs ocean there was no resistance to particles undergoing accelerated motion…which implies that all the known particles (electrons, up-quarks, downquarks, and the rest) had the same mass: zero.I The primordial Universe had no mass. But this is ostensibly true now. What seems more intriguing is that the early Cosmos and its elementary constituents would have had no appearance of massiveness as there was no agency to oppose the acceleration of elementary particles, no inhibitory entity to interact with particles in such a way as to weigh them down.
IIbidem .
25
Fundamentally, mass may be as illusory as extensibility and we may soon find that just as elementary particles are without spatial extent, they are also weightless. If this is indeed so, there is nothing to justify the perpetuation of the myth of materiality. Though the existence of the Higgs particle has yet to be experimentally confirmed, its evocation has already elucidated much about the mystery of mass. As we shall see, there are other intriguing ideas that impel us to doubt the physical and conceptual substantiality of mass. More Massive Mystification As suggested in the foregoing section, mass is not, ex hypothesi , an intrinsic property of matter. This sounds somewhat specious, so let us deliberate on the issue a bit more. First we must distinguish between the concepts of “weight” and “mass”. When we weigh ourselves on scales, we are not really measuring our mass. Rather, we are measuring the magnitude of the force of gravity exerted upon the “matter” of our bodies by the Earth’s gravitational field. This force is expressed by the following formula derived by Isaac Newton: F w =ma (where m is the mass of the object and a is the acceleration due to gravity). If we were in an environment where the strength of the gravitational field were negligible, the fundamental difference between weight and mass would be more evident, as is true of astronauts orbiting the planet or ‘lunarwalking’ on the surface of the moon where the strength of the gravitational field is comparatively weak. Let us imagine we are blithely floating aloft in deep space in a virtually weightless environment. We can now analyze mass in isolation from the confounding influence of massive planetary or lunar gravitational fields. All that is left is the mass of our bodies, the weak gravitational force field instated thereby, and, strictly speaking, a weak gravitational field that permeates the totality of space as a consequence of the aggregate mass contained in the Universe. But let’s ignore this latter gravitational contribution for the moment and concentrate on the mass of our bodies so as to appreciate the essence of the concept. The equation that best captures the ‘conceptual essence’ of mass is, fittingly, the most famous equation in all of 26
physics—Einstein’s equation relating energy ( E ), mass ( m ), and the speed of light ( c ): E=mc 2 The import of this equation lies in its succinct symbolization of the equivalence and interconvertibility of mass and energy: mass is convertible into energy and energy, in turn, is convertible into mass. The interconvertibility of mass/energy can be illustrated by two complimentary quantum processes involving particles and their antiparticles. We shall have more to say on the intriguing topic of particle/antiparticle interaction, but for now let us briefly note the basics. Each elementary particle (e.g. electrons and quarks) and each subatomic particle (e.g. protons and neutrons) has a partner particle that is identical to itself in every respect except for charge and one other property that we shall discuss in Chapter IV. The electric charges of particles and their antiparticles are diametrically opposite, with the electron, for example, having a charge of –1 and its partner particle, the positron, having a charge of +1. When a particle and its antiparticle partner meet, they annihilate each other, leaving in their wake only a magnificent flash of energy. Particle accelerators exemplify the converse phenomenon. When particles are accelerated to stupendous speeds approaching that of light, the input of energy into the system can elicit the emergence of particle/antiparticle pairs. “Matter” is thereby born of pure energy. It is important, furthermore, to consider whence the energy of particle accelerators derives. The energy to effectuate the acceleration of particles comes from a force—specifically, the electromagnetic force. This is the same force that propels currents of electrons through the wires of our electronic devices. This force can be described as a difference of potential energy or, more commonly, voltage . Potential energy is, essentially, negative energy. Potential energy or negative energy is thereby converted into a type of positive energy or kinetic energy demonstrable by the propulsion of the particle. In this scenario, we clearly discern the datum that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only transmuted from one form into another—from electromagnetic potential energy (negative) into motive or kinetic energy (positive), 27
for example. While we are on the topic of electromagnetism, it seems appropriate to digress a bit more. Electric charge, like mass/energy, is a “conserved quantity”, meaning it too, can be neither created nor destroyed; this implies that its absolute magnitude in an insular system cannot change. Consider the luminous discharge from a bolt of lightning. It is the polarization, accretion and subsequent separation of opposite charges that causes the rapid redistribution of electrons and, ultimately, the emission of photons that we recognize as lightning. For our purposes, the important point is that the physical manifestation of the lightening is fleeting, disappearing completely once the polarization of charges is rectified, once positive and negative charges equilibrate. In a sense, lightning is a manifestation of the separation of charged particles that disappears when such separation ceases. Considered collectively, the lightening “system” can be viewed as starting from a state of zero net charge, after which charges begin to accumulate in clouds due to electromagnetic reorientation. Lightning propagation proceeds only as long as polarization persists, petering out when protons and electrons equilibrate. The Universe can be loosely likened to lightening in that its constituents consist of charged particles, equal and opposite in type which, when summed, equalizes to zero. Lightning is a fleeting flicker of light engendered by the separation of charged particles; the Universe is a fleeting frenzy of activity engendered also by the separation of charged particles; each, as we shall see, is destined to disintegrate as their charges ultimately equilibrate. The import of this analogy between lightning and the Universe lies in its cosmological implications. Succinctly, how can an electrically neutral Cosmos replete with particles possessed of equal and opposite charges emerge from an amorphous, aggregated state? This brings us to a related question posed by particle physicist Michio Kaku (and a prolongation of our deliberate digression that I implore the Reader to forgive). Namely, why doesn’t the Universe spin? The answer may be that the Universe arose from utter oblivion, absolute emptiness, devoid of matter, energy, charge and spin. As Kaku conceives of it:
28
Everything we see around us spins, from tops, hurricanes, planets, and galaxies, to quasars. It seems to be a universal characteristic of matter in the universe. But the universe itself does not spin. When we look at the galaxies in the heavens, their total spin cancels out to zero….The reason why the universe does not spin may be that our universe came from nothing. Since the vacuum [the void of space] does not spin, we do not expect to see any net spin arising in our universe.I Similar reasoning can be applied to the aggregate electric charge of the Cosmos: Why do positive and negative electrical charges balance out exactly? Normally, when we think of the cosmic forces governing the universe, we think more about gravity than the electromagnetic force, even though the gravitational force is infinitesimally small compared to the electromagnetic force. The reason for this is the perfect balance between positive and negative charges. As a result, the net charge of the universe appears to be zero, and gravity dominates the universe, not the electromagnetic force….The answer to these enduring puzzles may be that the universe came from nothing. Since the vacuum has net zero spin and charge any…universe springing forth from nothing must also have net zero spin and charge.II Kaku’s case is compelling. Conceivably, a Cosmos containing no net charge and no net spin can arise only from a state of near nothingness. This is yet another element of our immaterial edifice. For if the Universe arose from nothing, and yet we undoubtedly IKaku
M. Parallel Worlds , 2004.
IIIbidem .
29
perceive something, that something mustn’t be material. It must instead be immaterial. We shall have more to say on this matter shortly. For now let us return to our discussion of energy. The concepts of force, energy, potential energy, and negative energy can become bewilderingly complex, at least to the Author’s ordinary intellect. Let us therefore try to simplify the matter with yet another example. Imagine an electromagnetic force field permeating a region of space. If we place a charged particle in the region suffused by the force field, the particle will move in a given direction depending on the orientation of force field lines and the nature of the charge, positive or negative. The movement of the particle within the field defines another type of energy—kinetic energy. We have here a force, which transmits potential energy (negative) to a charged particle which, in turn, dissipates this potential energy as motive, kinetic energy (positive), bringing the net energy of the system to zero in accordance with the first law of thermodynamics—the Law of Energy Conservation. So, in one sense, energy represents the transmission of forces. Now back to our bodies and the mass contained therein. Every massive particle comprising the substance of our bodies transmits a gravitational force or, equivalently, instates a gravitational field given by the following equation: F g =G(m 1m 2 /r 2 ) [Where m signifies masses of particles or objects separated by a distance r , and G is a constant known as the universal gravitational constant .] Though gravity is the weakest of Nature’s forces, it is the most pervasive of them all; it permeates all space and exerts an effect, massive or minute, on all objects proportionate to their ponderosity. This fundamental fact of Nature was discerned by Isaac Newton and codified in 1686 in his famous Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy . Newton’s Law of Gravity specifies that:
30
Every particle in the Universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them….The gravitational force is a field force that always exists between two particles, regardless of the medium that separates them.I But this field—in the same vein as the electromagnetic field—can be regarded as a field of potential energy or, more to the point, a field of negative energy . The description of the negative energy field associated with the gravitational force is perhaps more intuitive than that of the negative energy field associated with the electromagnetic force. One need only imagine lifting a massive object, say a stone, from the ground to a certain height and then letting it fall back thence. It takes effort (work) to lift an object against the Earth’s gravitational field and this work performed on the system, so to speak, is “stored” in the form of gravitational potential energy, negative energy. When an object such as our stone is released, however, this stored negative energy is converted into kinetic energy, dissipating in the process the gravitational potential energy and leaving the net energy of the system as zero. The central point of this exposition is that all massive objects, ourselves included, produce gravitational fields that permeate all of space, equaling in magnitude the positive energy constitutive of the mass (or equivalently, energy) of matter. Expressed alternatively: The law of gravitation insures that the negative potential energy of gravitation between the masses in the universe must always be equal in magnitude but opposite in effect to the sum of the mc2 energies associated with each of the individual masses. The total is therefore always exactly zero!II
I
Serway RA. Physics , 1996.
IIBarrow JD.
The Origin of the Universe , 1994.
31
This stands as compelling evidence that the sum total of energy in the Universe is zero and it ineluctably implies, ipso facto, that the sum total of mass in the Universe is zero. In a manner of thinking, mass is the materialization of energy; energy is the de materialization of mass. And all this creation and annihilation of mass ensues from a state of zero energy. It is like the numeral zero, giving rise simultaneously and spontaneously to the numerals –1 & +1, then being summed only to annihilate like a particle/antiparticle pair. Seen in this manner, the Creation may have been exceedingly simple, necessitating no preextant mass, no pre-extant energy, no pre-extant charge, no preextant spin, no pre-extant matter, only a simple, sublime, mathematical logic whose nature is becoming increasingly intelligible. Such simplicity, such vacuousness. So much for God. What role has She in such a Universe? Though the fundamental constituents of conventional matter—electrons and quarks—are ghostly particles, devoid of size, dimension, and perhaps even mass, they are possessed of what we may call concatenated properties or derivative properties: energy, charge, spin , momentum. Substance materializes out of the void of potentiality, embodying within itself the mathematico-logical construct specifying its own properties. And this substance of which “matter” is composed reveals itself as being as vacuous as the nothingness from which it emerged. Mere properties comprise the substance of the Universe. It is with these properties, however, that we are presently concerned and they are fully explicable and intelligible only through recourse to a rigorous mathematical methodology known as Quantum Mechanics. The centerpiece of this methodology is an equation known as the wavefunction. Let us prepare to relinquish more materialistic misconceptions. The Vapidity of Materiality: The View from Quantum Mechanics The defining feature of a wave is its undulatory nature—it exhibits peaks and troughs, ups and downs, highs and lows like the ripples on the surface of the sea amidst a storm. This central feature— 32
undulation—results in such derivative phenomena as interference and superposition. When multiple waves are emitted from a source, they ordinarily interfere with each other. When the peaks of one wave coincide with the troughs of another, the signal is attenuated. Conversely, when the peaks of one wave coincide with the peaks of another, the signal is augmented. If the signal is a light source, for example, a characteristic pattern of light and dark fringes emerges and may be recorded on, say, photographic film. That collections of water molecules exhibit wavelike behavior is not at all troubling. However, if individual water molecules or individual atoms of hydrogen and oxygen or their sub-atomic constituents exhibited such wavelike behavior there would be cause for concern. They do indeed exhibit this property and there is, accordingly, cause for concern. The experiment that exposes the wavelike essence of matter in all its eerie eminence is descriptively denominated the “double slit” experiment. So momentous are the implications of this experiment that I shall not risk miscommunication or misapprehension by relying solely on my understanding thereof. Instead we shall lean heavily on the lucid writing of physicists Jim Al-Khalili and John Gribbin. AlKhalili has written one of the most illuminating non-technical accounts of quantum mechanics that I have ever read. Entitled Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed , his is a book well worth reading, repeatedly. Our other guide, Gribbin, is a prolific writer and all of his works are insightful. I have, however, found his concise encyclopedia of particle physics most instructive. Entitled, Q is for Quantum , Gribbin’s compendious book is an invaluable resource for laymen lacking a mastery of mathematics who nonetheless long to learn the basic outlines of quantum mechanics. Let us proceed. It should be stated at the outset that the experiment in question is generic and has been conducted using photons (light particles), molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles such as electrons; all exhibit wavelike properties. The experimental design is deceptively simple, requiring only three basic components: an emitting source, a screen with small (sub-microscopic) slits or apertures through which emitted atoms or particles can pass, and a detector of some sort that may amount to nothing more than a scintillant screen that illumines in areas impacted by particles. Let us 33
use the example of electrons if only because they are both familiar and fundamental. Our envisioned emitting source shall be a metallic wire heated by an electric current. The wire is encased in a box through which is bored a hole, permitting excited electrons to escape. If we aim a beam of electrons through a single slit and observe the incident pattern on the detector screen, it is just as expected—a bright band on the detector screen directly behind the slit corresponding to the impact of numerous individual electrons. But what if we open two slits, giving the electrons an additional path through which to travel? Quantum enigmas ensue. Common sense suggests that the pattern should appear as two luminescent patches behind each slit, giving two distinct regions “that are brightest in their centre and gradually fade away as we move out and the ‘hits’ become rarer. The mid-point between the two bright patches will be dark, corresponding as it does to a region of the screen that is equally hard to reach for the [electrons] whichever slit they manage to get through”.I This emphatically is not what happens. “Instead, we see an interference pattern of light and dark fringes….The brightest part of the screen, believe it or not, is in the centre where we would not expect many [electrons] to be able to reach”.II In one sense the particles exhibit a discrete character—each electron produces a flash of light upon impact with the screen. In another sense the “particles” exhibit a wavelike character—each electron contributes to an aggregate pattern that can only conceivably arise through interference, an unambiguous property of waves. This is intriguing and rather mysterious. But perhaps this odd, counter-intuitive, wavemimicking behavior of particles is a consequence of the collective behavior of minute elementary entities in the same way that the collective behavior of water molecules exhibits the qualities of waves. But this is not so. For even if only one electron is permitted to pass through the openings at a time, the interference pattern still emerges. If the apparatus is adjusted in such a way as to emit a single electron at a time, allowing it to strike the detector before firing another, the wavelike pattern, though initially imperceptible, is produced I Al-Khalili J. Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed , 2003. II
Ibidem .
34
progressively as the impacts accumulate. At the risk of repetitiousness, I give Gibbon’s elaboration: Now, single particles are traveling one at a time through the experiment, and each makes a single spot on the screen. You might think that each particle must go through only one or the other of the two holes. But as more and more spots build up on the screen, the pattern that emerges is the classic interference pattern for waves passing through both holes at once. The quantum entities not only seem to be able to pass through both holes at once, but to have an awareness of past and future, so that each can ‘choose’ to make its own contribution to the interference pattern, in just the right place to build the pattern up, without destroying it .I
[latter emphasis mine]
Thus, the wave nature of electrons, of matter, is not a collective phenomenon, but is a property exhibited by individual particles of matter. What is more, as Gribbin clearly indicates, each particle is possessed of a property that can only conceivably be termed awareness . We shall have more to say about this most momentous topic when we discuss a slight variant of the double slit experiment below. For now, it must be appreciated that all “material” objects are, in essence, waves. With every material object is associated a wave whose wavelength and frequency depend on the mass of—that is, the amount of matter constitutive of—the object itself. It is only when the wavelength of the “matter wave” approximates or exceeds the dimensions of the material body itself that quantum effects are detectable. Electrons, protons, neutrons, photons, quarks, atoms, and even some molecules exhibit such quantum, wavelike effects as interference and diffraction because the waves of which they are composed have wavelengths that exceed or approximate the apparent dimensions of the objects themselves. These objects are thus quantum entities. Figs and dates are not, in aggregate, quantum entities (though IGribbin
J & Gribbin J. Q is for Quantum: An Encyclope dia of Particle Physics , 1998. 35
their individual particles are) because the wavelengths of their constitutive waves are miniscule compared to the scale and mass of these objects. Figs and dates are not good candidates for the double slit experiment; their constitutive waves will not split when faced with alternative paths, interfere with each other and produce a characteristic interference pattern. But they are waves nonetheless, as are we. If, God forbid, we were to be incinerated, the matter comprising our bodies would emit waves of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared range. The energy of such waves of electromagnetic radiation would be given by the following equation: E=h " [ h is a miniscule, yet fundamental and universal constant of Nature which symbolizes a given packet or quantum of indivisible energy that must be emitted or absorbed completely and discretely, in toto. It can be regarded as the fundamental limit of the divisibility of energy and has a paltry value of -6.6 x 10-34 Joules-seconds (Js)—its dimensions being those of energy x time; " symbolizes the frequency with which a wave propagates. This equation expresses the fact that the energy of a wave of electromagnetic radiation is a product of the frequency of the wave and a minute constant of proportionality.] Incineration is probably a painful process and we should like to avoid it at all costs. Can massive objects such as ourselves still be construed as waves even without being combusted, without being converted into electromagnetic radiation (and ash!)? The answer, as Louis de Broglie was to deduce, is yes. With each of the particles that comprise our bodies is associated a momentum—a product of the mass ( m ) of an object and the speed or velocity ( v ) with which it moves. Momentum ( p ) is given by the following mathematical expression: p=mv
36
de Broglie, employing Einstein’s two equations for the speed of light and the energy of electromagnetic radiation, respectively… " c=# /" & E=h " [where . is wavelength]
was able to derive the following equation(s) which expresses the wavelength of an object with a given momentum: # =h/p =h/p
Or =h/mv # =h/mv Thus, the wavelength associated with a massive object such as yourself is inversely proportional to your momentum or, more to the point, inversely proportional to the mass comprising your body. Because the magnitude of your body’s mass is so much greater than the magnitude of Planck’s constant, macroscopic objects such as figs, dates, and people do not appear to exhibit wavelike properties, though their constituents do, in fact, exhibit such properties. Electrons and other such elementary particles manifestly exhibit the properties of waves. But the waves of which electrons, protons, and positrons are constituted are not, we must remind ourselves, waves in the conventional sense. They differ radically from sound waves and water waves and even electromagnetic waves. The waves associated with electrons and their quantum kindred are waves of probability. Quantum particles are, in the absence of observation, neither here nor there. They can only be said to have a certain probability of being here or there, as having this property or the other. The waves of which particles are composed, the waves of which we are composed, are like no waves of which we are intuitively familiar. As strange as this wavelike behavior may seem, it is predictable and obeys a
37
rigorous mathematical modus embodied embodied in the so-called wavefunction or $ -function. -function. The wavefunction is a probability function, the solution of which gives the probability of finding a particle in a particular state or in a particular place at a given time. Moreover, it conveys all we can know about a quantum system (such as an electron) in the interval between the initial and final observations of its state; it tells us how a quantum system or particle behaves when it is not being observed or directly measured. In one of its guises it is symbolized thusly:
-((h/2 % % ) 2 /2m)& 2 $ +V $ =i(h/2 % )( '$ '$ /' t) +V $ =i(h/2 % t) h is Planck’s constant; & describes how the wavefunction ( $ $ ) [ h changes from one spatial locus to another; V describes the forces '$ /' ) acting on a particle; ( '$ t t describes how the wavefunction changes over time.]
Wave Goodbye to Matter Now that we have seen the form of the wavefunction, let us reflect on its conceptual implementation and its utility in describing the behavior of quantum entities. To this end we must ultimately attempt to apprehend what it means for the properties of particles to be probabilistic in nature and what it is that is “waving” in the wave equation. We shall consider only two examples, but these two shall suffice, I submit, to shape a correct conception of the fundamental nature of quantum entities and the wavefunctions to which they are inextricably wedded. Our first example involves an electron confined in a box.
38
Let us imagine that the electron is located in, say, the lower left corner of the box at the outset of the demonstration. Let us call this time T0. Our goal is now to specify the position of the particle at any future time. Let us call this time T x. The caveat is that we cannot observe the particle but must predict its future position on the basis of all we know about its initial state and that of its surroundings— principally its initial position at T0 and the volume of the container. The wavefunction permits us to determine the future location of the electron within the box, but only probabilistically. Solving the wavefunction for any future time (Tx ) gives the probability of finding the electron in a particular region within the confined space of the box. But here is the crucial point: “At any instant in time [the wavefunction] has a value for each point in space…[it] is spread out over all of space—hence the term ‘wave’”.I Nowhere within the container is the “probability density” equal to zero, nowhere is there exactly zero probability of finding the electron at a discrete locus within the confines of the box. This fact permits the following interpretation: the electron physically suffuses all of the space bounded by its container; the single particle is ‘smeared out’, distributed over the entire expanse of the box. Some physicists have been uncomfortable with this interpretation, preferring instead to think of the single electron as always behaving as a discrete particle whose changing position over time is given by the computation of its wavefunction. But this is not entirely defensible because in order to test the veracity of this interpretation one would have to peer inside the container to observe the state of the particle. As we shall see in the next section, the mere act of observation radically alters the state of the particle, causing its wavefunction to “collapse”, thereby compelling the quantum entity to “reveal” its particulate nature: “[I]f the electron is detected in a certain location then its wavefunction is instantly altered. At the moment of detection there will be zero probability of finding it anywhere else. Leave it be, and its wavefunction evolves and spreads out again….[A]ll the time we are I Al-Khalili J. 2003.
39
not tracking the motion of the electron, its wavefunction is all we have at our disposal to describe it….[T]he electron doesn’t even exist as a simple classical particle with a definite location at each time. Its influence is spread out over space. How this can be so we can never find out. All we have is the wavefunction, and that is just a set of numbers (with physical significance of course).I It seems consistent with the dictates of Quantum Mechanics to regard the confined electron as a true wave (when it is not being observed). But a wave of what exactly? A wave of information, a wave of probability, a wave of mathematical potentiality I aver. Information , probability, potentiality —these things are all amorphous, ethereal, immaterial. So are fundamental particles, so are we, so is everything it seems. Physicist Jim Al-Khalili, who has been aiding us (unbeknowingly albeit) in our quest for quantum competence, freely admits that “no one really knows what the wavefunction actually is” but that “most physicists regard it as an abstract mathematical entity that can be used to extract information about nature…while others assign it to its own, very strange, independent reality”.II Al-Khalili makes an audaciously absurd leap however in asserting that “what is important here is that it doesn’t matter whether the wavefunction is real or not , its mathematical properties are the same” [emphasis mine].II Let us forgive the physicist’s philosophical foible and emphatically affirm that it does indeed matter whether the wavefunction is real or not. In fact, few philosophical questions matter more than the true nature of the wavefunction inasmuch as it has implications for the true nature of ultimate reality. The wavefunction embodies indispensible information about the elementary entities that presumably comprise the totality of Nature. To say that the wavefunction is unreal or artificial, that it is merely a descriptive mathematical implement permitting the probabilistic prediction of properties of physical I Al-Khalili J. 2003. II Ibidem .
40
particles is to proclaim that matter is, perforce, material. Conversely, to say that the wavefunction is real, that it has an independent existence, that it is indissolubly bound to the quantum entities whose behavior it so exhaustively describes, is to intimate that quantum entities are essentially immaterial, that Nature itself is immaterial. To us interested in metaphysics, in the understanding of ultimate existence, the reality of the wavefunction is of critical concern. Given what is known, I am inclined to conclude that the wavefunction is real, that quantum entities are actually composed of such wavefunctions, and that, ipso facto, matter is fundamentally immaterial. As a further test of the philosophical solvency of our Immaterialistic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, let us cogitate upon the phenomenon of quantum tunneling. Consider a barrier of some finite thickness. Were we to propel a particle at this barrier, its trajectory would be specified by a wavefunction. Let us assume that we know the “penetrability” of this barrier—that is, we know how much energy must be focused at the barrier in order to breach it. We then project a beam of electrons at the barrier, the intensity of which is known to be energetically insufficient to breach the barrier. We might reasonably expect the incident particles to be deflected upon impact with the barrier. This is just what would happen…in the main. There is, however, a finite, non-zero probability that a particle (with insufficient energy moreover) will nonetheless penetrate the theoretically impregnable barrier. There is indeed a finite chance that a given quantum particle will tunnel through any barrier of any given thickness over a sufficiently lengthy span of time. Such quantum tunneling has not only been experimentally verified but has been harnessed and exploited in certain technological applications and invoked in explaining such phenomena as radioactive decay and electrical conduction through metallic materials. There are two principal ways of interpreting quantum tunneling: The standard way of explaining how quantum tunneling takes place is by appealing to [the] uncertainty relation between energy and time: provided the energy barrier that a particle needs to 41
tunnel through is not too high or wide, it can borrow sufficient energy from its surroundings to get through. This is allowed as long as it gives back this energy within a time set by the uncertainty relation.I This concept of the quantum particle “borrowing energy from its surroundings” is quite intriguing and we shall consider some of the possible implications of this interpretation in an ensuing section. There is, however, an alternative interpretation more in keeping with the probabilistic, wavelike properties that quantum particles are known to possess: More accurately, we must think of the particle’s wavefunction as existing as a superposition of being on both sides of the barrier at once. And it is the wavefunction that is penetrating the barrier . Only when we look do we ‘collapse the wavefunction’ to find the particle on one side or the other. [emphasis mine]I It is difficult to conceive of a material particle of finite size breaching an impenetrable barrier of finite thickness. Replace the material particle with an immaterial entity that meanders through an equally immaterial obstruction and some light begins to illumine the darkness of our profound perplexity. "= # +$
The wavefunction and the quantum system it describes are intimately and inextricably connected. But how intimately, how inextricably? Is the wavefunction merely descriptive or is it constitutive ? The truth, as Al-Khalili and other physicists admit, is that no one really knows. Of course, I am not neutral on this issue and I have a rather resolute, though rational, opinion. While Quantum Mechanics and the allimportant wavefunction are probabilistic in nature, its solutions yield I Al-Khalili. 2003.
42
data more precise than any other scientific methodology yet devised. If the wavefunction is epistemologically exhaustive, telling us all we can know about the quantum world, all we can know, fundamentally, about the behavior of the very constituents of the Cosmos, then how and where do we draw a distinction between what the wavefunction describes and what the wavefunction is ? The wavefunction describes properties of quantum entities and quantum entities, as we have seen, are seemingly nothing more than properties. They are ‘sizeless’, dimensionless, and perhaps intrinsically weightless—purely projections of perceptible properties. Such quantum quantities as spin, momentum, and energy are merely magnitudinous . What are we left with when the supposed material constituents of matter are found to be devoid of size, devoid of mass, and composed of mere properties whose magnitudes are completely describable by a probabilistic mathematical equation? What, essentially, is a mathematical representation but an immaterial entity, devoid of “physical” substantiality but embodying certain magnitudinous properties ? Cannot the wavefunction be regarded as an embodiment of information, an expression of encoded mathematical data duly decoded by our minds? Can we not dispense with the conception of quantum particles as miniscule quantities of matter, miniscule quantities of energy? Can we instead conceive of them as quantities of information ? Such speculation seems consonant with all we know about the quantum world. What then prevents us from reasonably postulating that fundamental, elementary particles and the mathematical wavefunctions that govern their behavior are, in some sense, one and the same? This is precisely what I posit—the identity of mathematics and matter. It is a position that I will attempt to defend more stridently in the next chapter. For now, let us pursue an even more mysterious phenomenon associated with the quantum realm: the “collapse” of the wavefunction. Wavefunction Collapse: The Mediation of Mind In the preceding section I made the point that the wavefunction constitutes all that we can know about an electron or any quantum 43
system when it is not being observed. It is during this unobserved, unmeasured interval that quantum effects are engendered, that particles behave like waves, tunnel through matter, and exhibit other strange behavior. When a given particle is observed however, it does not appear wavelike; it does not present itself as an amorphous entity, but as a discrete “particle”. Yes, it seems that quanta such as electrons behave one way when they are being observed or when a measurement is being performed on them and quite differently when they are not being so scrutinized. This is almost unacceptably weird and lest the Reader doubts the veracity of this claim, I will relate to you an experiment that leaves little doubt that quantum systems are somehow “aware” of being observed, “aware” of being detected. It is, in fact, upon observation that the wavefunction of a quantum system is said to “collapse”. Let us return to the double slit experiment. The Reader will recall that when a single slit is open, the particles that manage to traverse the slit behave as discrete particles, in keeping with expectations. However, when two slits are open, presenting the quantum particle with a “choice” of trajectories, the particles behave as waves whose individual wavefunctions seem to interfere with each other, thereby producing a characteristic, wavelike fringe pattern on the detector screen. This caused us considerable consternation. But sure to intensify our sense of intellectual indignation is the following technical twist. We alluded to the fact that one of the indications of the double slit experiment is that quantum particles or even a single quantum particle, when faced with alternative avenues such as two suitably separated slits in a screen (on the order of millionths of a meter), traverse both paths simultaneously . Ostensibly this is the only way for a wavelike interference pattern to emerge. And this is true, as Gribbin stressed, even if a single atom or electron is emitted at a time, with the next particle being emitted only after the previous one has traversed the slits and strikes the detector behind the slit screen. If electrons are emitted one by one in this methodic manner, the pattern that emerges is none other than the familiar wave pattern. Eerily, it seems we can interpret this in no other way than the following: the electron emerges from the emitting device, “sees” two available paths, splits into two wavefunctions as it 44
traverses the slits, and interferes with itself; that is, it interferes with its bifurcated wavefunctions, resulting in the fringe pattern characteristic of interacting waves. This mysterious behavior should strengthen our defensibly dogmatic supposition that the wavefunction does not simply describe the behavior of a quantum particle, but is the quantum particle itself. The mystery deepens still more. For what if we sought to force the quantum particle to reveal itself to us in its wave guise? What if we tried to detect the particle after it traversed the slits, after it bifurcated into its separate wavefunctions and, by so doing, ascertain which of the two slits it actually traversed. Such ingenious experiments have, indeed, been carried out. When a detecting device (such as a Geiger counter) is placed behind one of the two slits in such a way as to register a signal whenever a particle goes through, the particle does not behave like a wave, no fringe pattern appears on the far screen, only two distinct, bright bands representing the detection of discrete incident particles. Curious indeed. It gets even ‘curiouser’. When the detector is switched off such that it is incapable of recording the passage of a particle, the wavelike fringe pattern reappears! There can be no doubt that quantum particles are in some sense aware of the experimental design, that they “know” how many slits are open and how many paths are available to them, that they are aware of the detector being “on” or “off”, aware of being detected, aware of being observed. There is nothing more intriguing in all of science than this phenomenon and it guides my thinking on the fundamental nature of consciousness more forcefully than any other conception. So intriguing is this phenomenon that it warrants deeper reflection. Let us consider the device that detects the quanta as they emerge from one or the other slit. It need not be highly sophisticated. Evidently, it must simply be capable of registering a signal whenever it detects a quantum particle or atom. Beyond this requirement, it does not matter, presumably, how simplistic or how complex the detector is. Whether complex or simple however, the device amounts to nothing more than a collection of quantum particles, albeit suitably arranged to effect detection of an event—namely, detection of the passage of a quantum particle. The detector and the experimental setup must, of course, be conceived and fashioned by an intelligent agent whose 45
brain is similarly composed of nothing more than a collection of quantum particles, suitably arranged to observe events, among other things. If the particles that certain suitably contrived machines detect are somehow, in some sense, “aware”, being cognizant of the conditions under which they exist, it should come as no surprise that a collection of quanta, atoms, molecules, cells, organs, and organ systems should, over the course of hundreds of millions of years, under the influence of a selective, guiding principle aimed at insuring survival, result in the accretion of awareness and the emergence of what we call consciousness. Consciousness is the epiphenomenal result of the guided assemblage of molecules whose very elementary constituents are demonstrably possessed of the capacity for awareness. We do not know what it is like for a quark or an electron or an atom to be aware, but there seems to be little reason to doubt that they are in some sense aware. We know, moreover, that we are composed of these very entities. The key to consciousness may lie in the rudimentary awareness of the constituents of which we are composed. Animism is alive (pun intended). Natural selection, it seems, has endeavored to originate organisms increasingly aware of the state of their surroundings and has afforded them the ability to manipulate those surroundings. With this burgeoning evolutionarily conferred awareness the human mind has been able to ascertain something of the nature of the very agents and processes that make us aware. We have constructed devices and developed methodologies that enable us to peer into the very fabric of the Universe, into the very substance of ourselves. And we have found, ironically, that natural selection never intended for us to be so perspicacious, that our senses were not “designed” to uncover the secrets of the Universe. It is not our crude sensory capacities crafted by natural selection that have conferred such insight. Rather, it is the sophisticated technological artifices, sound scientific techniques, and arcane mathematical methodologies aided by an artificial selective process, invented quite recently by the human mind, which has revealed matter’s multifarious mysteries to us. And the crux of the mystery is that there truly is no matter and that the gulf between mind and the “material world” is not what we naïvely supposed.
46
Nonlocal Nonentities in Supernal Superposition We seem steadily to be losing our grip on matter. Materiality is evidently exhausting its intellectual utility. But what of space and time? Surely these concepts are unassailable. Does not the “fabric” of space enmesh us? Do we not experience the inexorable passage of time? We do indeed perceive the encompassing embrace of space, we do indeed perceive the arrow of time hurling headlong into the unforeseeable future. But these may merely be perceptions. There is reason to believe that the fundamental elements of Nature are not so encumbered by the constricting confines of space and not so beholden to the dictates of time. Fundamental particles, it has been shown, exhibit a property known as nonlocality . Consider the spin of elementary particles. Particles do not, of course, spin in the ordinary sense. Particle spin is a quantum phenomenon and has more to do with the orientation of particles than with rotational motion in space. It is helpful to imagine a particle such as an electron rotating about a certain axis in one of two directions, say clockwise or counterclockwise or simply (+) or (-). What makes particle spin quintessentially quantum and considerably counterintuitive is that a given particle cannot be said to possess either clockwise or counterclockwise spin until such time as it is observed. Prior to such observation, the particle is said to be in a superposition of both states, clockwise and counterclockwise. This sort of indeterminacy—the inability to determine or specify the precise state of a particle or system until it is observed, detected, or measured—is a central tenet of Quantum Mechanics. It is, however, troubling to some. We are accustomed to attributing definite features to objects—they either possess a particular property or they do not. Quantum Mechanics does not accommodate anthropocentrism. In the quantum realm, detection dictates definitude. In the absence of detection or observation only a sort of existential nebulosity reigns. In a manner of speaking, the (+) spin wavefunction of an (unobserved) electron exists in a superposed state with its (-) spin wavefunction. Only when a measurement is performed to determine the axial alignment of the electron’s spin does it assume a definite orientation. This seems 47
strange but it has been experimentally established with impressive accuracy. Now consider an idealized system consisting of two electrons, one with (+) spin, the other with (-) spin. Because of a quantum condition known as the exclusion principle , a system of two electrons cannot assume the same spin orientation—if one electron has (+) spin, the partner to which it is paired must have (-) spin. Now imagine that a certain distance separates the pair of electrons, say a light year. If we were to determine the spin orientation of one electron to be (+), we would know instantaneously the spin state of the other electron to be (-) and effectively force it to be so. This quantum correlativity has, we reiterate, been experimentally established. Succinctly, this is the crux of nonlocality—instantaneous effectuation. Something is transmitted or effectuated in no time, as if no space intervened betwixt the two objects. But how could this be? By what means do quantum particles instantaneously affect each other’s orientation? No information can be transmitted faster that the speed of light, so says Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. It is as if quantum particles are connected in some subtle way, that they are not separated in space, that they can interact without spatial mediation, that they are oblivious to time. This makes no sense unless we are prepared to concede that for quantum entities, space and time (as commonly conceived) may not exist . Space and time, if they exist in any sense, are seemingly subjective and define the fates of aggregate entities such as ourselves, not fundamental particles. If one relinquishes the concept of matter, it is not so difficult to relinquish the concepts of space and time. What need would there be for space or time in the absence of matter. Immaterial entities have no need for space or time. Matter is possessed of dimensionality, spatiality, temporality—immaterial essences are not. Space and time are, it seems, epiphenomenal, not intrinsic. In some way our minds engender an awareness of space and time, but these may merely be mental contrivances. We may perceive the epiphenomena of space and time but, fundamentally, they may not exist at all. Nonlocality, the Reader will recall, was first introduced in Chapter I in the context of consciousness. Though the brain upon which consciousness causally depends is localized in the space comprising one’s cranium, the mind is not so confined—the mind is thus nonlocal . Ideas, 48
emotions, and perceptions are neither spatially nor temporally constricted. Consciousness shares the property of nonlocality with fundamental particles, with the elementary substance of Nature, with the very agents that subserve its existence. Upon reflection, this should not be so surprising. Immateriality implies nonlocality and, as we have argued, both mind and matter are immaterial. The significance of this similitude between mind and the elementary constituents of matter is not altogether apparent, but there is little doubt in my mind that it is indeed significant. The vague feeling that we are mentally “connected” to another being is probably a common experience. Given what we know (and do not know) about the nonlocality of “matter” and the nonlocality of mind, it is difficult to dismiss this eerie inkling outright. But I digress and tread upon terra incognita . So what does this all mean? Here is my take on the matter. What it means for something to have clearly defined, discernible properties (as fundamental particles certainly do) but to have no radius, no dimensionality, and (perhaps) no mass, is to say that such entities are devoid of physical form and substance, that they consist merely of magnitudinous properties, agglomerations of arithmetic values. Such properties are thoroughly mathematical, though we lack an intuitive understanding of what it means for something to be mathematical, as opposed to being simply describable in mathematical terms. But our minds perceive these mathematical properties and miraculously transmogrify them into sensory data. I am here reminded of the climactic scene in the film, The Matrix , which won wide acclaim in the early 21st century, where the protagonist “Neo” gains insight into the true nature of the Matrix and begins to see the villainous “agents” with whom he is desperately dueling as mere codes, sequences of symbols. Victory was vouchsafed immediately upon the hero’s epiphanous vision. This is a fitting analogy that may be more than merely metaphorical. When we are permitted to gaze more deeply into the nature of reality than our unaided, evolutionarily constrained minds normally permit, we see the elementary constituents of “matter” as they truly are— insubstantial and thoroughly mathematical. 49
Some things cannot be weighed, as having no force and power; some things cannot be measured, by reason of having no parts; but there is nothing which cannot be numbered. " LEIBNIZ I
The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift, which we neither understand nor deserve. " EUGENE PAUL (JÉNÓ PÁL) WIGNER II
IQuote II
excerpted from Gottlob Frege’s The Foundations of Arithmetic , 1950. Quoted in Peter W. Atkins’ Gailileo’s Finger , 2003. 50
CHAPTER III SUPREME MATHEMATICS
_______________________________________ The mystery of mathematics is arguably as deep as the mystery of consciousness. For despite our familiarity with mathematical concepts, we do not truly know what mathematics is . Are there such things as mathematical entities? If so, where do such entities reside? Any such entities must be immaterial and yet they describe the “material” world with unsurpassed fidelity. Do mathematical concepts exist only in the mind or are immaterial mathematical entities somehow intimately woven into the very fabric of the “material” Universe? Perhaps mathematical concepts are simply creations of human cognition projected onto Nature as a means of simplifying and modeling the behavior of “physical” objects and processes. We may not be able to answer these perennial questions with a high degree of certitude, but the conceptual edifice we have been assiduously erecting already has a cozy, pre-fabricated place for a radical, though not entirely novel, interpretation of the fundamental nature of Number. Interpretations of Mathematics Our discussion of mathematics shall be descriptive, not exhaustive. This is necessitated by the fact that I lack mathematical expertise and expect my otherwise intelligent Audience to be similarly encumbered. Mathematics is, after all, downright difficult and mastery of the discipline is a distinction few can claim. We are, however, thinkers who, possessed of the right tools, can capably conduct ourselves through conceptually complex terrain, especially if we lean on learned individuals. To our advantage, we shall be concerning ourselves with the what of mathematics, not the how —the former task being far more facile, tractable (and mayhap meaningful) than the latter. 51
There are several, seemingly irreconcilable interpretations of what mathematics is. Let us denominate these dominant schools of thought with the following nomenclature (I) the Realistic Interpretation, (II) the Conceptualistic Interpretation, (III) the Formalistic Interpretation and (IV) the Simplistic/Intuitive Interpretation. Physicist John D. Barrow gives an illuminating account of the various currents of thought on the nature, definition, and interpretation of mathematics in his book The World Within Worlds . Barrow’s cogent analyses have gone a long way in guiding my thinking on the numinous nature of Number. Let us consider each interpretation in turn. The Realistic Interpretation is so named because supporters of this school of thought regard mathematical entities as real, as existent. Not existent in this Universe albeit, not extant in the space and time of our world. Rather, mathematical entities exist in an ethereal realm divorced from (though in some way connected to) our phenomenal Universe. It is for this reason that the Realist Interpretation is often identified with Plato. Plato conceived of a world of immaterial, idealistic “forms” faintly perceptible by the human mind and imperfectly instated in this world. What it means for mathematical entities to be ‘imperfectly instated’ in our world is perhaps explicable in the following way. The formula specifying the volume of a sphere is expressed thusly: V=4/3% r 3 A sphere of any given radius ( r ) that assumed this exact conformation would be a perfect sphere, an “ideal” sphere in Platonic parlance. No such perfect spheres exist in this “real” world of ours. Neither Man nor Nature is able to construct spheres with the exactitude specified by the mathematical formulation for the volume of a sphere I. So the I This proclamation may prove excessively severe. It may in fact hold that stellar bodies undergoing catastrophic gravitational collapse eventually assume a state of exact sphericity. Would not this be something magnificent to observe? Further, a fascinating experiment conducted by JJ Hudson and colleagues ( Nature May 2011) suggests that, within the then limits of experimental sensitivity, the electron appears to be perfectly spherical. Though this provisional finding plays havoc with
52
question that naturally arises is ‘From whence do such mathematical principles derive?’ The Realistic or Platonic Interpretation answers this question unambiguously: They derive from an ulterior metaphysical realm. The question of how such principles and entities are realized (however imperfectly) in our world is not so unambiguous but centers on the vague notion of correspondence . As Barrow explains, “These mathematical objects do not exist in the space and time we experience. They are abstract entities, and mathematical truth means correspondence between the properties of these abstract objects and our system of symbols”[emphasis mine].I While our limited powers of reasoning permit us to deduce mathematical “truths”, these truths are necessarily derivative and secondary to the ultimate, transcendent “truths” of the yonder metamathematical realm of the Realist. Thus, to the Realist, mathematical entities resident in the metaphysical realm are, in a sense, more real than the crude mathematical phenomena we perceive in our Universe, more real than the mundane mathematical proxies of our physical world. “Mathematical ideas like the number ‘seven’”, Barrow says of the Realist position, “are regarded as immaterial and immutable ideas that really exist in some abstract realm, whereas our observations are of specific secondary realizations….”II The Realist Interpretation is admittedly alluring to an Idealist like myself though it is concomitantly difficult to accept at face value. For one, it seems to offer no explanation of how mathematical properties become imprinted on the objects of our physical Universe. We shall delve a bit more deeply into this glaring problem later on in this chapter. For now, let us turn to another interpretation—that of Conceptualism. This school of thought is antithetical to Realism in that it views mathematics as nothing more than a conceptual contrivance. Mathematics, the Conceptualist avers, is simply a product of human thought. In this respect, mathematics is like language—both are products of human thought, both are employed hypothetical projections pertinent to particle physics, it has a certain aesthetic appeal. IBarrow JD. The World Within the World (1988) quoted in The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, & Mathematics , Ferris T (Ed.), 1991. IIIbidem . 53
as communicative media, and both can be used to describe features of the natural world, though not with equal efficacy. So how does the Conceptualist explain the amenability of the physical world to mathematical description? In a word, projection . Conceptually contrived mathematical models are simply projected onto the physical world. Armed only with a hammer, the Conceptualist might say, one is liable to regard problems all-too-commonly as nails. I must say that I do not find this interpretation to be especially compelling. The link between the physical world and mathematics seems far too deep to attribute it to a mere mental projection of a contrived communicative modality. On the other hand, some mathematical concepts seem so abstract, so artificial as to be inapplicable to any entities or phenomena in our physical Universe. Surely such exotic creatures as imaginary numbers are conceptual in nature, having no counterpart in the phenomenal world. Should we limit our conception of mathematics to that which is realistically conceivable, that which is ‘common-sensical’, that which is intuitive? Yes, according to the Simplistic/Intuitive Interpretation. Infinity is one such concept that the Intuitive approach abrogates. We cannot grasp the infinite. It is not intuitive to us. There is no physical referent to which we may easily apply the concept of infinity. Consider the set of all real numbers. It is infinite [Actually or potentially—I know not the correct designation]. Likewise, there exist an infinite number of digits between any two numerals in the set of all real numbers, even between the numbers 1 & 2, even between the numbers 1 & 1.1. One need only imagine the following expansive sequence {1, 1.01, 1.001, 1.0001, 1.00001…}. We can let an infinite number of zero’s follow the decimal place, illustrating thereby the infinite numerical expanse between real numbers. But can this mathematical premise be extended to the natural world, to time for example? It would be nonsensical to speak of an infinite amount of time separating two events transpiring over, say, an interval of 2 minutes. There is no infinitum of time between 12:00 & 12:01. This excursive example illustrates (in a way) the formalistic nature of mathematics—mathematics as a logically consistent system of rules based on axiomatic principles that may or may not be physically meaningful. This is the crux of the Formalistic Interpretation. It 54
holds that the “truth” of mathematics is to be found in its formal rules of computation. As Barrow explains: The focus of attention is upon the relations between entities and the rules governing them, rather than the question of whether the objects being manipulated have any intrinsic meaning. The connection between the world of Nature and the structure of mathematics is totally irrelevant to the formalists….Attention [is] focused upon the relationships between concepts rather than on the concepts themselves. The only goal of mathematical investigation [would be] to show particular sets of axioms to be self-consistent, and hence acceptable as starting-points for the logical network of [mathematical] symbols.I Formalism, Realism, Conceptualism, and Intuitionism are all intellectually meritorious, though seemingly irreconcilable. But our admittedly immodest mathematical “model” does just this—it reconciles these divergent interpretations and integrates them into a comprehensive, cohesive framework. Our interpretive model is, in a word, deep. The Constitutional Interpretation of Mathematics: The Third Factor in M4 Stated explicitly, our interpretation of mathematics—what I term the Constitutional Interpretation —maintains that the material constituents of the Universe are integrally mathematical, that the “physical” substance of our world is constituted by mathematical entities. Had we not already established the non-physicality of the “physical” world, this contention would seem rather absurd. For mathematical entities are immaterial, consisting merely of properties and governed by deterministic rules. This, the Reader will recall, is also true of IBarrow JD. 1988.
55
“matter” in its most elementary form. The strength of this position is augmented by the thoroughness with which mathematics describes the properties and constitution of elementary particles and their interactions. The model which experimentalists and theorists have collaboratively constructed to organize, synthesize, and distil all current knowledge of elementary particles and fundamental forces— nominally, the Standard Model of Particle Physics—is a magnificent mathematical edifice, and though incomplete, is exceptionally accurate. The Standard Model can hardly be conceived or understood satisfactorily in any other way except mathematically. Also compelling is the fact that an arcane branch of mathematics, encompassing group structures and symmetries, ‘prophesied’ the physical description of various subatomic particles. As John Barrow relates: The interactions of elementary particles, indeed the existence of particular elementary particles, appear to be dictated by mathematical symmetries, and these are described by groups. All these groups were discovered and classified by pure mathematicians more than a hundred years ago, oblivious of modern physics. These properties are exact as well; they predict that there exists a certain number of particles of a certain type and no more….[This] seems to reinforce the view that the world is intrinsically mathematical.I Consider also the extraordinary discovery of antimatter by P. A. M. Dirac. It was, we are informed, Dirac’s ambition to reconcile Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity with Quantum Theory. To this end, he derived an equation that “embodied both the wave nature of electrons and Einstein’s ideas about the relativity of motion, with the correct relationship between mass and energy. But there was a
IIbidem .
56
subtlety that could not be ignored”. I The subtlety was embodied in the equation itself: Strictly speaking, the relevant formula relating mass and energy turned out to be not E=mc2 but E2=m2c4. Taking the square root of both sides does indeed give Einstein’s familiar equation—but it also gives another ‘root’, leading to the alternative equation E=mc2….At first, Dirac ignored the second root, because it implied that the energy of the electron could be negative, which seemed meaningless. But its presence as a solution to the equation troubled him, because he could think of no obvious reason why an electron with positive energy should not emit energy in the form of a photon, and thereby make a transition to a state with negative energy.II What could it mean, phenomenally, for the electron to possess negative energy? Electrons routinely make energetic transitions, emitting photons in the process. So what, Dirac mused, was to prevent electrons from being engulfed by a sea of negative energy and disappearing? Dirac’s answer hinged upon the fact that electrons are fermions, and that only one electron can go into each possible state….It must be, he reasoned, that electrons didn’t fall into the negative energy states because all those states are already full. What we call “empty space” is actually a sea of negative energy electrons….Give an electron energy and it will jump up the ladder of energy states.III
IDavies
& Gribbin. The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries that Challenge our Understanding of Physical Reality , 1992. IIIbidem . IIIGribbin J. In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat: Quantum Physics & Reality , 1984. 57
Imparting the right amount of energy to an electron lurking in the lake of negative energy causes it to materialize as an ordinary electron: The negative energy electron promoted into the real world would be normal in every respect, but it would leave behind a hole in the negative energy sea, the absence of a negatively charged electron. Such a hole…ought to behave like a positively charged particle (much as a double negative makes an affirmative, the absence of a negatively charged particle in a negative sea ought to show up as a positive charge).I The name bestowed upon such an electron with positive charge is a positron . Thus was the concept of antimatter born. Theoretical ‘prophetization’ soon gave way to validation as experimental evidence established the emission of antimatter (positrons) from cosmic rays. These two examples warrant serious consideration in my estimation. In the former example—relating groups and symmetries to the existence and properties of particular elementary particles—we have a case of an esoteric branch of mathematics, conceived in the absence of any then-known physical referent, embodying the correct logical structure to serve as an explanatory model of discrete properties of quanta. In the latter example we have a case of a mathematical equation derived to explain a physical parameter of one aspect of the world, embodying in its very mathematico-logical structure the key to the conceptualization of new and theretofore unknown physical parameters, doubling in a single stroke the known elementary constituents of our Universe. To make this realization all the more compelling, consider that the insight which led Dirac to the profound discovery of antimatter was apparently prompted by performing a mathematical operation so simple that it is routinely taught to grade schoolers: recognizing the dualistic nature of perfect IIbidem .
58
squares (i.e. +2 and –2 as solutions to the problem, / 4). This does not diminish the ingenious discovery of Dirac in the least but illustrates the integral nature of the nexus between mathematical entities and the rudimentary substance of this world. All that is needed to firmly establish the intrinsically mathematical character of the Cosmos is to establish the intrinsically mathematical nature of the most elementary constituents of the Cosmos—fundamental particles. This imperative has been admirably executed by able theorists. What is left is to consider how intrinsic the numerical nature of elementary particles is. I would argue that the intrinsicality is so deep as to be inextricable, indissoluble. I see no logical barrier to this conclusion and it answers quite compellingly that perplexing perennial question that has vexed serious thinkers throughout the ages: ‘Why is mathematics so incomparably successful in describing the natural world?’ The Constitutional Model answers emphatically: ‘Because the physical world is not merely described by mathematics, it is constituted by mathematics’. As such, discerning and mastering the mathematical logic to which Nature conforms permits the astute physicist to plumb the arcane corpus of mathematical principles that mathematicians have derived (partly by using Nature as a guide and partly by using the mind as a guide) and to thereby preconceive various theretofore unknown constituents and properties of the “physical” world. Quantum Mechanics, the foundational science of the subatomic world, is a mathematical masterpiece. Every elementary particle is governed in minutest detail by a temporally evolving, probabilistic mathematical function—the wavefunction. It is mathematical through and through. And there seem to be insufficient grounds for separating the quantum system from the wavefunction that governs its state—quantum entities and their wavefunctions are inextricably linked and the wavefunction embodies all that is knowable from a quantum perspective. The principal barrier to the idea that the elementary constituents of our Universe and their associated wavefunctions are one and the same is, to reiterate, the oncereasonable retort that physical entities are material and mathematical entities are immaterial . When one considers the evidence for the immateriality of matter, however, the two realms—the ‘pseudo-
59
physical’ realm and the mathematical realm—merge seamlessly into one. The mathematics constitutive of our phenomenal world does not exhaust the totality of what we regard as mathematics however. For the human mind has been able to discern the mathematical principles inherent in Nature, constitutive of Nature. From these primary mathematical principles, Man has been able to abstract from Nature the basic logical structure of mathematics and conceptually contrive principles of a secondary, abstract, derivative character. This is the mathematics of Acad " m# a —formalistic mathematics. In this view, only a subset of the panoply of mathematical principles is embodied in the pseudo-physical substance of our Universe. And those mathematical principles so embodied in our Universe are, to our minds, intuitive. Those mathematical principles that strike us as non-intuitive, that do not correspond to physically realizable entities, are the products of the human mind, mere conceptual contrivances. Mathematics can thus be viewed as a grand logical lattice that encompasses the very constituents of our world as well as derivative principles modeled upon and abstracted from Nature. The human mind is therefore truly creative in that it derives, de novo, mathematical structures based on logical principles which undergird our Universe. The formal logic of mathematics is thus generic and generative. This generative capacity is demonstrated in the mathematical constitution of the world. Summarily, the Constitutional Interpretation subsumes each of the dominant interpretations of mathematics—the Realistic Interpretation, the Conceptualistic Interpretation, the Formalistic Interpretation, and the Simplistic/Intuitive Interpretation. Our model encompasses the Realist approach inasmuch as it regards mathematical entities as real . The Constitutional model does not, however, relegate mathematical principles solely to a transcendent realm. The reality of mathematical entities is manifested in the “physical” constitution of our Universe. In accordance with Conceptualism, the Constitutional model acknowledges that a subset of mathematics is contrived and, true to the Formalistic approach, it is the logical structure of conceptually contrived mathematics that defines its mathematical validity. However, in line with the Simplistic/Intuitive approach, it is only those mathematical principles 60
intuitive to our minds that are embodied in and constitutive of the pseudo-physical world in which we live. There. A happy marriage of multifarious models. Mathematics & the Hierarchical Nature of Scientific Disciplines Admittedly, it is difficult to view the ordinary physical objects of our world as being composed of mathematical entities. How is a “mathematical entity” supposed to look? How is it supposed to feel? We don’t typically regard mathematical entities as anything more than concepts. How can they have a physical existence? The truth is that they don’t have a “physical” existence. Nothing has a “physical” existence and nothing is as it superficially seems. Our senses bear false witness to the ultimate nature of existence—they were not “designed” for this purpose. As previously stated, we must trust, instead, in scientific, technological, and mathematical methodologies to discern the hidden nature of Reality. And these methodologies have revealed the immateriality of matter and the intrinsically numerical nature of the Cosmos’ constituents. When we peer deeply enough into matter we see only properties, governed and constituted by mathematics. Our perceptions and sensations are, ultimately, perceptions and sensations of the mathematical properties of “matter”. And from these perceptions and sensations we are able to abstract general mathematical principles that transcend physical embodiment. This is not too dissimilar to the way in which general principles of Chemistry are abstracted from actual chemical entities: There are chemical entities and an abstract science of Chemistry based thereupon. There is nothing strange in the notion that physical objects are literally composed of chemical substances and that the properties of these chemical substances are governed by principles codified in the science of Chemistry. There is likewise nothing strange in the notion that organisms are literally composed of biological molecules and that the properties of these molecules are governed by principles codified in the science of Biochemistry. There is nothing strange in the notion that physical objects are literally composed of atoms and that the properties of atoms are governed by principles 61
codified in the science of Atomic Physics. We could say the same of Subatomic Physics but I’m sure the Reader anticipates the culmination of our line of analogical reasoning: There is nothing illogical or absurd in the notion that physical substances are, at their very core, literally composed of mathematical entities and that these entities are governed by principles codified in the discipline of Mathematics. Consider the hierarchical organization of the natural sciences: I.
Biological organisms constituted by biological molecules are governed by the principles of Biochemistry. Biology is based on Chemistry.
II.
Physical substances constituted by chemical entities are governed by the principles of Chemistry. Chemistry is based on Physics.
III.
Physical entities constituted by atoms are governed by the principles of Atomic Physics. Atomic Physics is based on Mathematics.
IV.
Atoms constituted by fundamental particles are governed by the principles of Mathematics. Mathematics is based on no deeper substructure. Mathematics is foundational.
V.
Fundamental particles are constituted by mathematical entities…
Mathematics is thus the bedrock upon which all science is founded and the “substance” from which Nature itself is assembled.
62
We have to embark upon the track of the absolute zero of creative involvement in the creation, the absolute zero of intervention. The only clue we have at the outset is that the final answer will almost certainly be one of extreme simplicity, for only the perfectly simple can come into existence while all agents sleep (or are not there). This suggests that we should examine the universe for the footprints of its underlying simplicity. As we look for them we must always remember that complexity of behavior and appearance may be illusions, and what we perceive as complexity may be the outcome of chains of simplicity. " PETER W. ATKINS I
Ah, these troublesome limitations of yours!—they hamper me. Your race cannot even conceive of something being made out of nothing—I am aware of it, your learned men and philosophers are always confessing it. They say there had to be something to start with—meaning a solid, a substance—to build the world out of. Man, it is perfectly simple—it was built out of thought . Can’t you comprehend that? "# 44, New Series 864,962II
Born from nothing though I be proved, let me find that nothing out. " OEDIPUSIII
[T]here is in every man a profound instinct which is neither that of destruction nor that of creation. It is merely a matter of resembling nothing. …
" ALBERT
CAMUSIV
I Atkins PW. Creation Revisited , 1992. IIQuote from Mark Twain’s # 44, The Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug, and Freely Translated from the Jug , 1969. IIIQuote from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King . IV Camus A. The Minotaur or The Stop in Oran , 1939.
63
The universe at large is fringed with nothingness, from which indeed (how else?) it must have been created, if created it was, and its beginning and end, like that of all change within it, must similarly be viewed as a passage from one nothing to another, with an interlude of being in between. " P.
I
L. HEATHI
Quote from entry “Nothing” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Volumes 5 & 6, 1967. 64
CHAPTER IV COSMOLOGICAL & COSMOGONICAL CONSIDERATIONS
_____________________________________
The central theoretical postulations of this book are allegiant with the philosophical doctrines of Immaterialism, Numericism, and ProtoPercipience, where Immaterialism proclaims the intrinsic immateriality of matter, Numericism proclaims the intrinsic ‘mathematicality’ of matter, and Proto-Percipience proclaims the intrinsic ‘quasi-sentience’ of matter. The bases upon which our versions of these philosophical doctrines rest are, in my estimation, scientifically and theoretically tenable. Our evidentiary edifice is erected upon such empirical premises as the infinitesimal character of elementary particles, the explicability and intelligibility of elementary particles preponderantly in mathematical terms and, most momentously, the exhibition of awareness by such particles. As we adduced earlier, no finite aggregation of any such immaterial particles (of which the totality of the Universe is ostensibly composed) can amount to a material object. This synoptic deduction has both cosmological and cosmogonical implications—that is, implications for both the large-scale structure of the Universe and the origin thereof. If the totality of the Universe is composed of immaterial elementary entities, then the Universe itself is immaterial. And if the Universe as it now exists is immaterial, then it must have been equally immaterial billions of years ago at its inception, or at its Incarnation. Current scientific thought regarding the origin of the Universe appears to affirm the veracity of these assumptions and our present undertaking amounts to an exercise in chronicling the continuity of the immaterial essence of the Cosmos as we peer into the past, ambulating across the awesome expanse of space and time. Is our conception temporally consistent? Does immaterial cosmology comport with immaterial cosmogony? Did the Cosmos appear equally immaterial at its inception as it appears presently? These are the questions that we shall confront in this chapter, and from my 65
presupposing posture the perceptive Reader will doubtless discern that I have already answered these queries affirmatively in my mind. I now seek to secure the assent of my sapient Audience. T0 Theoreticians believe that the Universe began as a singularity —as an infinitesimal point, immeasurably dense and incomparably hot. Compelling scientific support for this position has come from several quarters, the most important of which was the discovery made in 1923 by Edwin Hubble that the Universe is expanding. If the Universe is expanding, it is reasoned, if galaxies are receding away from each other, there must have been a time in the remote past when the distance between galaxies and the stars contained therein was much closer and the radius of the Universe substantially smaller. But how much smaller? Renowned theoretical physicist Steven Hawking in his brilliant book, The Universe in a Nutshell , gives a lucid explication of the necessity of the cosmogonical singularity based upon Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Central to his reasoning is the observable fact that energy and mass both exert an attractive force (mediated by gravity) upon all objects, including quantum particles of light and on the very substance of space-time. Consider the light emitted from the most distant galaxies. The emergent light spreads out in the shape of a cone. When the paths of such quanta are traced backward in time, the density of the Universe increases as its radius decreases . Hawking goes on to explain that: As one follows our past light cone back still further, the positive energy density causes the light rays to bend toward each other more strongly [due to gravity]. The cross section of the light cone will shrink to zero size in a finite time. This means that all the matter inside our past light cone is trapped in a region whose boundary shrinks to zero. [emphasis mine]I IHawking
S. The Universe in a Nutshell , 2001. 66
Can one realistically suppose that any two material objects may occupy a given space simultaneously? Can one realistically suppose that the totality of matter was simultaneously confined to a region of infinitesimal size a finite time ago in the past? The answer is clearly “no” if one regards matter as material, as being composed of particles of finite size. The answer is clearly “yes” if one regards matter as immaterial, as being composed of particles of infinitesimal size or as oscillatory waves of magnitudinous values. This stunning vision of the Universe as evolving from an infinitesimal locus is not at all counterintuitive if what we have claimed about the nature of matter is correct—if matter is, in essence, an aggregation of infinitesimal immaterial entities. When we imagine the coalescence of all matter in the Universe in the temporal regress back to the beginning—T 0 — back to the point where all the point particles constitutive of matter converge, back to a locus of infinitesimal radius, back to the Primordial Point , it is easy to appreciate the insubstantiality of matter, the vacuousness of the Universe, the immateriality of All. We are composed of virtually nothing, we originated from virtually nothing, and to near nothingness we shall surely return. This is not so hard to imagine when one learns, as we have learned in the previous chapter, that the sum total of matter in the Universe is zero. There is no more intriguing case of the macrocosm embodying the microcosm than this. Chaotic Cosmogony Steven Hawking and his illustrious colleague Roger Penrose employed Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in their mathematical demonstration that the Universe must have begun with a singularity. This demonstration, however, posses some serious scientific dilemmas. The existence of a singularity at the very inception of time and space places limitations on what can be discerned, scientifically, about the origin of the Universe. The problem arises from the infinite curvature of space-time associated with a zero-radius, infinitesimal entity of infinite density. Such infinities are mathematically menacing 67
and are thought to demarcate the limits of the applicability of the very theory (i.e. Relativity) responsible for its invocation. Quantum Theory, when applied to the origin of the Universe, introduces yet more incorrigible infinities. Specifically, it is the Uncertainty Principle , propounded by Werner Heisenberg, which causes cosmological consternation. Though we need not delve into the mathematical intricacies of the theory (as if I could manage to do so), it should suffice to appreciate that the Uncertainty Principle imposes an inherent limitation on our knowledge of certain simultaneous complementary quantities associated with quantum entities. A canonical example of this is the inability to define, simultaneously, the precise position and momentum of, say, an electron. If one complimentary quantity is known precisely, the other is known imprecisely. There are other such complimentary quantum quantities, including energy and time. The interplay of these two variables has extraordinary consequences as explained by physicist Jim Al-Khalili: The more accurately we know the energy [of a quantum particle], the less certain we can be about how long it has this energy. Likewise, the shorter the time interval we consider, the wilder the fluctuations in energy we will get….In the quantum realm, the time scale of events is very short indeed….The number of times that a proton can travel from one side of an atomic nucleus to the other in a single second (moving comfortably within the intra-nuclear speed limit) is many thousands of times more than there have been seconds since the Big Bang. This short time scale allows particles such as protons and neutrons to utilize the uncertainty principle in a neat yet crucial way. They can borrow energy from literally nowhere for a very short duration, provided the energy gets paid back before the uncertainty principle is violated. The shorter the time the energy is needed for, the more can be borrowed . [emphasis mine]I I Al-Khalili J. 2003.
68
Thus, over an instantaneous span of time, an individual particle can accrete an infinite quantity of energy from nowhere . Why from nowhere? Because an infinite quantity of energy cannot be originated in this Universe it would seem. Such would be an apparent violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. From whence comes this infinitum of energy then? It must come from a realm that is separate from, but linked to our Universe. The Reader will recall that mass is a ‘derivative’ property of energy and that the two are completely interconvertible. This means that innumerable pairs of particles and virtual particles can incessantly, though fleetingly, emerge, annihilate, and re-emerge in a phantasmagoric quantum congeries. As Stephen Hawking explains, this phenomenon has momentous consequences for the quantum description of cosmology: The uncertainty principle means that even ‘empty’ space is filled with pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles. These pairs would have an infinite amount of energy and, therefore, by Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2, they would have an infinite amount of mass. Their gravitational attraction would thus curve up the universe to infinitely small size.I Obviously our Universe is not infinitely small, so the marriage of Quantum Theory, which explains the behavior of particle/antiparticle pairs, with Relativity Theory, which explains the morphology of space-time, is a troubled union. It seems to be the consensus view among theoretical physicists that Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory are irreconcilably flawed in their combined description of space-time on the minutest scales. Can it be that, despite the demonstrable accuracy of these two central scientific theories in their respective domains, they are nonetheless inherently immiscible and that, perhaps, a more sweeping, more general theoretical complex can encompass them both? Perhaps. But consider this alternative, IHawking
S. A Brief History of Time , 1996. 69
admittedly speculative, conjecture. Perhaps the infinities created by the conflation of Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory do not indicate their ultimate inefficacy in the fundamental description of space-time, but instead intimate that space-time is radically different in nature than previously presumed. Perhaps, fundamentally speaking, there is no space-time—no space and no time. Perhaps each discrete region of space is a dimensionless singularity whose properties are specified and constituted by a mathematical formulation that our minds simply perceive in gross, aggregate form, as space. Perhaps it is true that every locus of space is contiguous with a realm of infinite energy. Perhaps our Universe is but one of a multiplicity (or perhaps an infinity) of universes that emerged from this energetic abyss. These conjectures are a bit extravagant, but consider their explanatory implications. They might indicate that the two central systems of physics, Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory—the most accurate empirical edifices ever erected—are indeed veracious in their fundamental description of space-time. It just might be that the ultimate elucidation of space-time necessitates its conceptual obliteration. There is no matter, there is no mass, there is no energy, there is no space, there is no time. It is becoming easier to conceive how the Universe could have emerged from nearly nothing. Tryon’s Theoretical Triumph: Creatio Ex Nihilo —Quantum Style Empty space is not altogether vacant; the Void is not entirely vacuous. It was mentioned previously that matter and antimatter annihilate upon impact, converting their combined mass into energy. So too can the converse process proceed, wherein energy in the quantized form of a photon gives rise to a particle-antiparticle pair. More intriguing is the fact that particle-antiparticle pairs emerge spontaneously from utterly “empty” space, with no input of energy whatever. This would seem to violate laws of conservation insofar as it entails the creation of matter. Antimatter, however, exhibits properties exactly opposite to that of matter, so their summation cancels out completely. Stated explicitly, each quantum quantity of a 70
particular particle—mass, charge, spin, &c.—is exactly counterposed by its complementary counterpart, its antiparticle. Each of these aforementioned quantities is conserved, collectively counting as zero contribution to the Cosmos’ net mass, charge and spin. What is more, the duration over which such particles borne of nothing can exist is fleeting and for this reason they are termed “virtual particles”. Quantum mechanics dictates that virtual particle pairs can exist for a time defined by the Uncertainty Relation. It is expressed as follows: $E$t~h OR
$t~h /$E
[Where $E is the net energy of the particles, $t is the allotted lifetime of the particles and h is the ubiquitous quantum constant that bears the name of its distinguished discoverer, Max Plank.] If virtual particles can emerge ex nihilo (out of nothing), in keeping with the conventions of quantum uncertainty, could the Cosmos have arisen from a similar state, from a fortuitous flux of the Void? This is the question presciently posed by theoretical physicist Edward P. Tryon in his seminal paper published in 1973. His preliminary conclusion was compelling: The spontaneous temporary emergence of particles from a vacuum…is utterly commonplace in quantum field theory. If it is true that our Universe has a zero net value for all conserved quantities, then it may simply be a fluctuation of the vacuum, the vacuum of some larger space in which our Universe is embedded.I
I Tryon EP. Nature 1973.
71
As to how a quantum fluctuation could have occurred on such a cosmic scale, ultimately originating the Universe itself, Tryon was quite clear: [T]he laws of physics place no limit on the scale of vacuum fluctuations. The duration is of course subject to the restriction $E$t~h, but this merely implies that our Universe has zero energy….I Consider the equation in question expressed again in terms of time: $t~h /$E
If the energy content of our Universe is infinitesimal, then its duration approaches infinity; if the energy thereof is indeed zero, then its duration is undefined. Thus, a universe such as ours can (or must) emerge completely uncaused and exist for a temporally indeterminable period provided it comports with the conventions of quantum conservation and contains zero net energy. That the Universe apparently arose from nothing and contains nothing material is a suggestive substantiation of Immaterialism. Initial Conditions It is evident that our Universe (or an “incarnation” thereof) began as a dense, hot, compressed point that commenced to cool as it expanded. Our Universe is still expanding at a rate of 15 kilometers per second per million light years and the remnants of this awesome explosion are detectable, some 15 billion years later, in the resplendent residuum of radiation that suffuses the interstellar aether, giving deep space a uniform though exceedingly cold temperature of approximately 3 Kelvin, a few degrees above absolute zero. Though its “cause” is uncertain, the Big Bang is a “fact” as incontestable as Evolution. But it is with causes that we are presently concerned, with IIbidem.
72
the initial conditions that compelled the Cosmos to evolve in a precise way and to exhibit the features and properties it possesses. The Universe seems superficially to consist of 4 dimensions—3 spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Contained therein are both “matter particles”, ostensibly possessed of such qualities as energy, spin, and mass, and “force particles” which mediate or transduce the fundamental forces of Nature, of which there seem to be 4: electromagnetism, gravity, the strong force, and the weak force. Things were not always as they appear presently however. During the Universe’s infancy, conditions of temperature and density were such that molecules and atoms could not exist. Radiation and a plethora of exotic particles predominated during the earliest phase of cosmic history. There was a time, moreover, when the fundamental forces of Nature were concatenated into a single, primordial Force. There was, at this time before time, no space to speak of, no separation of the agglomerated, infinitely dense “matter” of the Universe, only an isolated, infinitesimal entity governed by a single supreme Force. Once again we must reiterate the suggestive similitude between the fundamental particles of the Universe being constituted by non-dimensional, infinitesimal entities, possessed purely of properties and the primordial Universe, itself having been a non-dimensional, infinitesimal entity, possessed purely of properties. Intrinsic immateriality and intrinsic mathematicality are attributes shared by the fundamental particles of Nature and the primordial Universe itself. Just as mathematical parameters define the features of fundamental particles, so do mathematical parameters define the features of the primeval Universe. Embedded within the mathematical formulae constitutive of the incipient Cosmos were the formulae constitutive of the Cosmos’ constituents. In the beginning there existed nothing more than mathematical parameters—initial conditions—sufficient to specify the evolution of the Universe. Presently, there exist nothing more than the mathematical parameters constitutive of the Universe and conscious observers, some sufficiently sentient and sagacious to apprehend the ultimate nature of their Being. Even before the Beginning there must have existed the mathematical logic that would determine the nature and evolution
73
of the Universe. Even before the Beginning there must have existed the mathematical “ingredients” for muons, mice, men, and minds. The Proto-Percipient Universe In Chapter II we reflected upon the central mystery of Quantum Mechanics—the fact that elementary particles undoubtedly possess a degree of awareness. This fact is demonstrable by such empirical evidence as the modified double slit experiment, where the process of observing or detecting a given quantum particle causes it to shed its nebulous, wavelike guise and assume a discrete particulate character. As we have seen, the state of the primordial Universe is arguably analogous to that of a fundamental particle. What are the implications of this similitude? One implication is that just as fundamental particles possess proto-percipience, so might the primordial Universe have possessed this property. What can it mean for the entire Universe to have possessed the quality of proto-percipience? Of this we cannot be sure. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to conclude that if the Universe behaved like a quantum entity, exhibiting all the eerie attributes of quantum particles, then the origins of awareness, “matter”, and the mathematical logic that governs the properties thereof were cosmogenetically contemporaneous. So consciousness, in a manner of speaking, was born at T0, at the Cosmos’ inception. Consciousness and existence are, perhaps inextricably linked. Existence as such may be a sufficient cause for consciousness (of the rudimentary, proto-percipient sort). The Reader is forthwith reminded of our definition of a quantum entity: It is an entity possessed of both wave and particle properties. It is constituted by a wave, the size of whose wavelength exceeds the dimensions of the observed entity itself. Thus, it is reasonable (at least ostensibly so) to regard the primordial Universe as a quantum entity. An ineluctable consequence of doing so is to invest it with the quantum quality of proto-percipience common to all such entities. The Reader will recall that the act of observation or detection is necessary to induce the exhibition of proto-percipience by quantum particles. At the inception of the Universe there were no 74
such observers and no such detection devices. But this fact does not preclude proto-percipience per se at the earliest cosmic epoch. Observation and detection are necessary to induce the exhibition of proto-percipience but not necessarily to elicit the emergence of protopercipience. Proto-percipience is a property of quantum entities as such . Selective observation and detection of this property merely makes us aware of its existence, it does not, perforce, bring this property into existence. So even though there were no observers to perceive the proto-percipient property of the Primordial Point, this attribute was ostensibly extant nonetheless. In the very Beginning were sown the seeds for consciousness. These seeds were embedded and encoded in the wavefunction of the Universe. This wavefunction contains the superposition, the summation, of the individual wavefunctions constitutive of the Universe’s elementary constituents. In the Beginning there was proto-percipience and mathematicality. As it was in the Beginning, so shall it be in the End. N !n , Nous & Numerus : Symbols, Science & Supreme Mathematics
In our discussion of mathematics we resolved to return to the question of its ultimate source. We noted that certain discernible numerical principles govern the morphology and evolution of the Universe. Fundamental particles, it was argued, are constituted by mathematical entities inasmuch as they are infinitesimal, immaterial, and explicable on the basis of mathematical constructs called wavefunctions. The Universe itself can conceivably be regarded as a wavefunction and, hence, as a thoroughly mathematical entity. Everything we construe as corporeal, physical, and substantive, we contested, should be regarded instead as mathematical. But, as mentioned previously, mathematics is multifarious. Mathematics constitutes our world, but it is also the offspring of human minds. There is a subset of mathematics that is embedded in the fabric of Nature and there is a subset relegated to the recesses of the human mind. The entire corpus of mathematics known to humankind is not applicable to Nature. Nature, therefore, does not exhaust the totality of mathematics in its embodiment. This is not so difficult to conceive 75
when one appreciates the extraordinary simplicity that must have characterized the early Universe—an entire cosmos contained in an infinitesimal volume, devoid of space, time, and “matter”, and governed by a single Force. Whatever mathematical principles governed the early Universe must therefore have been decidedly simple. [Though not so simple as to be perspicuous to the minds of conscious observers born 15 billion years hence.] So it might be said that our Universe evolved from a limited set of initial conditions, an initial set of mathematical parameters, an initial corpus of information specifying its conformation and constitution. But what, if anything, specified and gave rise to this limited set of mathematical parameters? Is there an un limited set of mathematical parameters? Is there an infinite set of initial conditions specifying the constitution of an infinite collection of universes of which our Universe is but one of an infinitum? Edward Tryon alluded to this possibility in his previously cited statement that our Universe “may simply be a fluctuation of the vacuum, the vacuum of some larger space in which our Universe is embedded.”I As unsettling as this idea is, it comports well with a perplexing phenomenon discussed previously. Particles can “borrow” infinite quantities of energy from nowhere for fleeting instances of time, provided they dissipate this borrowed energy back to nowhere with a rapidity governed by quantum rules, thus preserving the Principle of Energy Conservation. “Nowhere”, I surmise, is a realm of infinite energy contiguous with our Universe. Might this “nowhere” be the unlimited set of initial conditions from whence the multiplicity of universes such as our own arose? Might “nowhere” be a realm of infinite energy and infinite information? Infinity is, admittedly, a concept that is barely intelligible. Infinite energy can be conceived with some difficulty. Infinite information is, however, scarcely comprehensible. The apprehensibility of this idea may be augmented, perhaps, by simply defining what we mean by information. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a lucid exposition of the concept we wish to convey by our use of the term “information”:
IIbidem .
76
…[T]hat which inheres in or is represented by a particular arrangement, sequence, or set, that may be stored in, transferred by, and responded to by inanimate things….[A] statistically defined quantity representing the probability of occurrence of a symbol, sequence, message, etc., as against a number of possible alternatives. The infinite informational Abyss from whence our Universe emerged embodied the essential elements needed to specify the conformation of infinite universes—so we postulate. This realm of infinite information contains the set of all initial conditions, the set of all mathematical potentiality. It is, moreover, the origin of all mathematics. This is why only a subset of mathematical principles is ensconced in our Universe—the rest is invested in an infinitum of other causally closed universes. The ancient Egyptians conceived of a primordial Abyss from whence all things originated. This Abyss was given the name N ( !n ) and it embodied inexhaustible potentiality. From it emerged the plentitude of the perceptible world. N%n was neither a god nor a mortal being of any definite sort, but an entity from whose ineffable essence everything arose. N%n was not created but existed for eternity in a realm distinct from the space and time of this world. Its “evolutions” were inscrutable to the minds of men—so the Ancients avowed—though its multifarious emanations created the constituents of the world. Awareness inhered in the substance of N%n and this archetypal awareness ultimately engendered Mind.I This disembodied Mind, incubated in the murky depths of the Abyss, was personified as the dark demiurgic deity (Amen), probable precursor of the Platonic Logos , which brought Itself into being through mental selfsubstantiation and thereafter proceeded to populate the created Cosmos. Amen, the Arkhitekt $n , the Grand Artificer, established creation on the basis of divine Order. In Egyptian mythography, this I The similitude between the Egyptian N !n and the Platonic Nous (Mind) is suggestive.
77
Order was personified and iconically identified with the goddess Maát . Mathematics connotes order and the word Maát denotes the same. [There is an intriguing affinity between the words— Maát ~Math. Consider, moreover the Sanskrit word math or matha , which denotes a monastery. Monasteries are of course commonly devoted to certain Orders (i.e. monastic orders).] Remarkably, these musings may reveal recognition on the part of Kemetic chroniclers of the centrality of mathematics (conceived as Order or Maát ) in the evolution of the Cosmos. In this theosophy, primitive though profound, crude yet captivating, the origins of which abut the prehistory of humankind, we have a conception of the world beginning not solely with gods or spirits but with an all-pervading, enigmatic, eternal substance suggestively symbolizing potentiality and percipience . And this Primordial Percipience, though personified in the image of a deity, conformed its creative designs to the dictates of an overarching Order. Arguably, the theistic elements of ancient Egyptian cosmogony are incidental while the metaphysical elements are integral. Having been exposed to Egyptology at an early, impressionable age and intellectually identifying with some aspects of that cryptic culture, I do not know precisely the extent to which Kemetic cosmogony has influenced my thinking on the nature and origin of the Universe. Certain of Egypt’s millennia-old creation mythologies manifest a surprising sense of sobriety that make them fitting metaphors from the vantage of a modern metaphysician with a flair for recondite relics of the past. Perhaps symbols can still be said to serve a salutary purpose.
78
ONE OF MONSIEUR TESTE’S PRAYERS
Lord, I was in the Void, endlessly nothing and quiet. I was aroused from that condition to be thrust into this strange carnival…and in your care I was endowed with all that is needed to suffer, enjoy, understand, and be wrong; but these gifts are unequal. I consider you the master of that darkness I look into when I think, and on which the last thought will be inscribed. Grant, O Darkness—grant the supreme thought… But any generally ordinary thought may be the “supreme thought.” If it were otherwise, if there were one thought supreme in itself and of itself , we could discover it by reflection or by chance; and once it was found, we should have to die. That would mean being able to die of a particular thought, merely because there was none to follow. I confess that I have made an idol of my mind, but I have found no other. I have served it with offerings and curses. Not as a thing of mine. But… " PAUL VALERY I
A strange mystery it is that Nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular hurrying through the abyss of space, has brought at last a child, subject still to her power, but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with a capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking Mother. " BERTRAND RUSSELL
IExcerpt from Paul Valery’s Monsieur IIExcerpt
Teste , 1989. from Jamal N. Islam’s The Ultimate Fate of the Universe , 1983.
79
II
80
CHAPTER V IDEATIONAL ANTECEDENTS
_________________________________________ As mentioned in the preceding chapter, the central themes of this work—Immaterialism, Numericism, and Proto-Percipience—are not novel philosophical conceptions. Various thinkers throughout the ages have proffered arguments consonant with these schools of thought, the ‘Trinitarian Truths’ of metaphysics. What is novel about the approach we have taken in our effort to substantiate Immaterialism, Numericism, and Proto-Percipience is our invocation of rigorous scientific arguments and empirical evidence—information that has never been meticulously evaluated in the context of these philosophical positions. To my knowledge, ours has been the first preliminary attempt to do so. But these philosophical doctrines were pre-extant if not altogether substantive and so I feel compelled to catalogue the convergence and divergence of our ideas with the ideas of other proponents thereof and indicate instances where our system has expounded upon and, arguably, improved upon the concepts of other thinkers. Adherents to Immaterialism Bishop George Berkley (1685-1753), the 17 th century Irish philosopher and clergyman was perhaps the most influential proponent of Immaterialism. Berkley, though he explicitly affirmed the reality of an objective, sensible world, held that the objects of our perception exist only as a consequence of being perceived— Esse est percipi (“To exist is to be perceived”). “It is the mind”, said Berkley, “that frames all the variety of bodies which compose the visible world, anyone whereof does not exist longer than it is perceived”.I However much he affirmed the reality of an objective world, IBerkley
G. Principles of Human Knowledge/Three Dialogues , 1710, 1988. 81
Berkley’s position amounts to a radical form of Mentalism , where all that exist are minds and their mental content. Because the reality of objective existence is contingent upon conscious observation, it must be explained what happens to a thing when it is not being perceived and, more pointedly, before there were any such things as minds. Berkley’s answer to the former question is that there is no time when objects are not being perceived, for the infinite mind of God fashions the elements of the world and miraculously impresses these immaterial elements in the minds of conscious beings. His answer to the latter question is a merely a modification of the first: Because the mind of God is temporally infinite, there was no time when His mind did not exist. We think the thoughts we think and perceive the perceptions we perceive because God forges them in our minds. According to Berkley: It is evident that the things I perceive are my own ideas, and that no idea can exist unless it be in a mind. Nor is it less plain that these ideas or things by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of my mind, since I know myself not to be their author, it being out of my power to determine at pleasure, what particular ideas I shall be affected with upon opening my eyes or ears. They must therefore exist in some other mind, whose will it is they should be exhibited to me….There is a mind which affects me every moment with all the sensible impressions I perceive . And from the variety, order, and manner of these, I conclude the Author of them to be wise, powerful, and good, beyond comprehension ….The things by
me perceived are known by the understanding, and produced by the will, of an infinite spirit.I
It is clear that Berkley expounds this rather curious version of Immaterialism principally to provide a proof (particularly paltry the Reader will readily concede) for the existence of God. In fact, he IIbidem .
82
expresses this aim explicitly in his Three Dialogues Between Hylas & Philonous: in Opposition to Skeptics and Atheists . By debasing Materialism in favor of Immaterialism and by equating God with immaterial, illimitable spirit, Berkley seeks to subsume all Being within the substance of his Deity. God is more easily assimilable into an immaterial spiritual world than a gross, material world of crude physical objects. Thus, theistic imperatives fueled Berkley’s philosophical speculations and it is difficult to see how the invocation of gods or spirits adequately explains anything whatsoever in the context of objective reality. Whatever his motivation for promulgating Immaterialism, Berkley’s arguments, in my opinion, provide no substantive support for this philosophical doctrine. Indeed, Berkley inveighs against the soundest supposition supporting Immaterialism—the infinitesimal character of the Cosmos’ constituents. He denounces both infinitesimal and infinite entities (actual and abstract) on the basis that they cannot be conceived by the human mind, and that which cannot be conceived by the human mind, he avers, cannot be said to exist. To Berkley, that which is inconceivable is existentially impossible, precluded in principle. This lamentable line of reasoning absurdly and imperiously projects the limitations of the human mind onto objective reality and onto the discipline of mathematics. Moreover, it runs counter to current scientific thought. As we have seen, both experiment and theory affirm the infinitesimal, non-dimensional, point-like character of fundamental particles and this is the chief basis upon which our version of Immaterialism rests. Add to this the wave nature of matter revealed by quantum mechanics and the suspect status of such “physical” properties as energy, charge, and mass and Materialism compulsorily concedes victory to Immaterialism as the most veracious description of Nature. The ideas of another eminent Immaterialist warrant our appraisal—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Regrettably, I must assert at the outset that the very foundation of Leibniz’s framework is tenuous inasmuch as he bases his deductions entirely upon the notion that extension cannot conceivably be a property of elementary matter. What is more, he must assume that this dubious datum is self-evident to his audience, for in his terse treatise, The 83
Monadology , he makes no attempt at substantiation or explanation; he
simply states that: “Now, where there are no constituent parts there is possible neither extension, nor form, nor divisibility.” Since elementary matter can have no constituent parts, it is incapable of exhibiting extension. Therefore, matter must be comprised of infinitesimal, immaterial entities which he calls monads . Leibniz’s monads are infinite in number, each possessed of different properties, and unable to interact with each other. As to how and why matter appears to exhibit interaction, we are informed that the Divine Will is at work: In the case of simple substances, the influence which one monad has upon another is only ideal [apparent, perhaps]. It can have its effect only through the mediation of God, in so far as in the ideas of God each monad can rightly demand that God, in regulating the others from the beginning of things, should have regarded it also. For since one created monad cannot have a physical influence upon the inner being of another, it is only through the primal regulation [God’s intervention] that one can have dependence upon another….For God, in comparing two simple substances, finds in each one reasons obliging him to adapt the other to it.…I I cannot imagine a more extravagant, inelegant, intellectually inane theory than one that necessitates an omnipotent, omniscient god to directly manipulate an infinite number of infinitesimal entities in such a way that they only appear to interact though they remain absolutely isolated and aloof. [William of Ocham would be indignant.] If I were God I could think of better things to do with my life, everlasting though it may be. Admittedly, it brings me no great gratification to disparage the emanations of a mind keen enough to independently originate the infinitesimal calculus. Alas, everything that issues forth from a great mind is not great. While the Bishop and the I
Leibniz GW. The Monadology , 1720, 2005. 84
Mathematician may have been Immaterialists or Idealists, the essential features of our respective theories differ decidedly. Immaterialism may have been propounded in ages past, but not until the present has Immaterialism been buttressed so firmly by empirical, scientific data and rigorous theoretical reasoning. The Depths of Mathematics The very fabric of space-time and the perceptible, particulate material strewn about the Cosmos are describable in precise detail by mathematical models. Mathematical principles govern the dimensions of discrete space, the minutest intervals of time, the smallest quanta of energy, the properties of fundamental particles and the forces that act thereupon. The ability of mathematics to describe Nature with such fidelity has impinged upon the minds of myriad metaphysicians, mystics, and particularly pensive people since the dawn of civilization. So deep is the connection between the physical world and the mathematical models which describe its machinations that some have argued persuasively that Nature is intrinsically mathematical. Such luminaries as Pythagoras and Plato held this view. At the risk of seeming overly dismissive, the veracity of this position is patently obvious upon informed analysis. Nature is manifestly amenable to mathematical description. Of greater intellectual exigence is the issue of whether the relationship between the nominally physical world and the numinous world of Number is one of correspondence or one of identity . We have argued the case for identity, for Numericism. This position has had few adherents, though its most prominent modern advocate, writer and physical chemist, Peter W. Atkins, is sufficiently adept to lend it considerable weight. Unfortunately, however, the illustrious scientist falls somewhat short of convincingly establishing the soundness of Numericism. In his delightful book, Creation Revisited , Atkins presents a mathematical interpretation termed Strong Deep Structuralism : By strong deep structuralism I…mean that mathematics and physical reality do not merely share 85
the same logical structure but are actually the same. In other words, according to the hypothesis of strong deep structuralism, physical reality is mathematics and mathematics is physical reality.I Atkins holds the view that the mathematical formulae employed by physicists to describe physical phenomena are statements or symbolizations of general logical principles that inhere in physical entities and phenomena. With this sentiment we earnestly agree. He goes on to explain that: Aspects of the universe are summarized by mathematical formulas; formulas are generalized statements about relations between quantities; those quantities are expressed numerically; hence, formulas are statements about the relations between numbers; statements about numbers are in fact statements in general logic. Thus we discern the hint that the formulas of physics are expressions about some underlying logical structure of the universe, which is the content of deep structuralism.II The above passage is well reasoned. It is, however, merely a case for the correspondence between the underlying logic of mathematics and the underlying logic of objective “physical” reality. This position is indistinguishable from Atkins’ Weak Deep Structuralism , which holds that “mathematics and physical reality merely share the same logical structure and mathematics is a mirror that can be held up to nature”.III So, though he explicitly makes the claim that “the physical world is mathematics”, he does not provide a convincing case for the strong version of Numericism. Our version, Constitutionalism, does. To succeed in making the case for Numericism, one must succeed in making the case that the physical realm and the mathematical realm I Atkins PW. Creation Revisited: The Origin of Space, Time & the Universe , 1994. IIIbidem . IIIIbidem .
86
which so successfully describes it are constitutionally similar, not simply logically similar. I confess that I do not truly apprehend the essence of the ‘constitutional similarity’ of physical entities and mathematical entities, but one will have gone a long way in rendering this concept intelligible if one establishes the fundamental immateriality of matter. Constitutionalism succeeds where Deep Structuralism fails because Constitutionalism plausibly presupposes the immateriality of matter. Mathematical entities are immaterial entities and for there to be identicalness between mathematical entities and physical entities, it is necessary that physical entities be ‘de-physicalized’, ‘immaterialized’. I believe we have succeeded in this ambitious endeavor. Our case was made even more persuasive as we focused our attention on the basic ingredients of “physical” reality, the fundamental particles that comprise the substance of Nature. Fundamental particles, we learned, have a quantum character—a character embodied in the mathematical formula known as the wavefunction. There is no consensus as to what the wavefuntion truly is but there is no doubt that it tells us all we presently know, perhaps all we can ever know, about the quantum world. Constitutionalism takes a definite stand on the true identity and nature of the wavefunction. We maintain that the computation of the wavefunction and the subset of reality that its solutions describe are one and the same. This interpretation is only defensible if, fundamentally, there is no “physical” reality, only an immaterial reality—an immaterial reality that is nonetheless objective, nonetheless real. Proto-Percipience: Many Mini Minds It is difficult to chronicle the origins of Proto-Percipience as it presents itself as one of only a few basic conceivable approaches to the problem of consciousness. Though Proto-Percipience is not theoretically novel, our particular version of it has some novel elements and rests on the foundation of the most exact science ever conceived—Quantum Mechanics. We shall therefore focus on the M4 dispensation of Proto-Percipience and consider some criticisms leveled at this theory in general. 87
In Chapter I we presented some of the ideas of philosopher Colin McGinn. We return to the work of this profound thinker because he has, in his lucidly written Mysterious Flame , furnished a very poignant critique of Proto-Percipience or “Proto-Mentalism”—a critique that is well worth confronting, especially considering its centrality to our theoretical edifice. Proto-Percipience, the Reader will recall, is the proposition that the basic substance of “matter” possesses a particular property that is sufficient to summon sentience when suitably arranged as in organs of perception. This property is called proto-percipience in recognition of its rudimentary nature—it is not consciousness sensu stricto, but a quasi-sentient property that precedes and permits consciousness. Not until the writing of M4, I believe, has quasi-sentience been properly identified and linked to the behavior of quantum particles as exhibited in the double-slit experiment. McGinn is not, I surmise, privy to this property and his critical analysis of Proto-Percipience suffers substantially from this intellectual privation. We shall nevertheless consider his general critique. The main thrust of McGinn’s argument is that ProtoPercipience is blatantly obvious: [Proto-Percipience] says that matter has some properties or other, to be labeled ‘protomental,’ that account for the emergence of consciousness from brains. But of course that is true! It is just a way of saying that consciousness cannot arise by magic; it must have some basis in matter. But we are not told anything about the nature of these properties.I In fact, the double slit experiment does give us some insight into the nature of what we call proto-percipient or proto-mental properties. Simply stated, the experiment clearly establishes that quantum entities are “aware” of the conditions of the experiment and alter their behavior based not simply on the presence or absence of mechanical &
IMcGinn
C. 1999. The Reader is referred to Chapter II for a description of the experimental design and philosophical implications of the double-slit experiment. &
88
detection devices but on their activation or inactivation, whether they are turned “on” or “off”. Hence, quantum entities—elementary particles, protons, neutrons, electrons, &c.—are aware of being detected or observed. The results of this experiment permit few, if any, alternative explanations but that we must ascribe awareness of a rudimentary sort to the most elementary constituents of Nature. McGinn explicitly invokes the properties and behavior of atoms and elementary particles as indicating their absence of sentience: Physicists have discovered no reason to attribute sensations and thoughts to atoms….They get on perfectly well without supposing matter in general to have mind ticking away inside it. If electrons have mental properties, these properties make no difference to the laws that govern electrons.I This presumption is demonstrably erroneous if ‘quantum quasisentience’ of the sort exemplified in the double-slit experiment is admitted in McGinn’s conception of “mental property”. Physicists do indeed have reason to attribute a modicum of awareness to atoms and electrons, though we do not know what it is like for an electron to be (in any sense) aware. This should not be too troubling since we do not know what it is like for a bat to be aware or a chimpanzee or a mentally malfunctioning man for that matter. We do know, in a limited yet precise sense, what electrons and other such quantum entities are aware of in the context of the experiments. They are aware of being presented with particular paths and they are aware of being detected traversing such paths. Moreover, quantum entities assume either wavelike or particulate properties depending on whether or not they are being observed. The analysis of this complementary character—wave or particle—is central to Quantum Mechanics and ‘constitutional duality’ is a basic feature of quantum entities. McGinn is therefore mistaken in presuming that the property of Proto-Percipience “makes no difference to the laws that govern electrons”. Quite the contrary, what we call Proto-Percipience may be IIbidem .
89
regarded as a consequence or manifestation of a “law” or principle that does indeed “govern electrons” and their quantum kindred. Another focus of McGinn’s critique of Proto-Percipience is that it renders the properties of brains merely epiphenomenal . If rocks too are composed of quasi-sentient constituents and are yet evidently inert, why should brains (or the minds they subserve) be so manifestly animated? We addressed this problem in Chapter II but it is worth reconsidering. I hypothesize that it is only when quantum entities are aggregated in a particular way that they attain the sophisticated biological attribute that we properly call consciousness.I McGinn calls this position “empty”, claiming that it packs no explanatory punch. This criticism may be misdirected however, as can be illustrated by analogy. It is instructive to regard consciousness as merely another biological phenomenon, like genetic replication for example. Rocks are seemingly inert; rabbits are not. What animates rabbits, what makes them biological entities instead of merely physical entities in the vein of rocks? In ages past the answer was elusive but it eludes us no longer. It is not the basic ingredients of which rabbits are composed that causes them to differ radically from rocks (especially if the rock is a meteorite containing organic materials from interstellar space). What causes rabbits to differ from rocks boils down to an informational code. This informational code is embedded in the nuclei of each of the rabbit’s billions of cells and it specifies the construction of its body and dictates, through neurophysiology, the complexities of its behavior. The code is incorporated in the very atomic constituents of its molecules (DNA, RNA, &c.). But these atomic constituents do not differ in kind from those found in a meteoric rock. What differs is the organization of IOur
hypothesis is subject to the following critique. Aggregation is a spatial construct. If quantum particles are in fact non -spatial, how can the spatial arrangement of non-spatial entities engender particular properties? Perhaps the answer (as intimated elsewhere in the context of nonlocality) is that what we perceive as space is, fundamentally, a phenomenon far removed from the reality experienced by quantum particles. On this analysis, our use of the term “space” would amount to a convenient shorthand that does not convey the complexity of the concept. Perhaps a mind more adroit than the Author’s can offer us a more adequate account of this apparent limitation of our hypothesis. 90
the atoms constitutive of the rock and rabbit respectively. In the same way that organic molecules must be suitably arranged to transduce biological activity, organic molecules must be suitably arranged to transduce psychological (neurological) activity. Function follows form. The difficulty with extending this biological analogy to consciousness is that the leap from physics to chemistry to biology is merely a leap from one manifestation of matter to another manifestation of matter. The leap from biology to psychology—that is, from biology to consciousness—ostensibly entails a leap from matter to mind, from material substance to immaterial substance. But then, we have crossed this conceptual chasm haven’t we? Never Mind Matter, Mathematics Modulates Mentation M4 is a prescription for the demystification of consciousness. No longer should the metaphysical problem of consciousness be regarded as insoluble. No longer is there a need to reconcile the existence of asomatous souls or immaterial minds with the existence of material brains and bodies, for we have seemingly succeeded in rendering the concept of materiality superfluous. Materiality is thus a concept with no objective referent. It may seem radical to divest matter of its physical character, but our model seems scientifically sound and is consistent with the central theories of physics so far as they stand in this century. Lifting the veil of materiality from the face of Nature leads us not only to the unification of mind and matter but also to the unification of matter and mathematics. The rather unreasonable, otherwise inexplicable effectiveness with which mathematics describes physical phenomena is now seen to be a consequence of the identity of “physical” entities and mathematical entities. In fact, the very concept of a mathematical entity is now arguably intelligible—mathematical entities and the physical entities they were once thought to merely symbolize are one and the same. One need no longer conceive of a parallel world of immaterial mathematical essences. Mathematical entities need not be relegated to a realm distinct from the space and time of our Universe. Immaterial mathematical entities comprise the substance of which boulders, 91
bodies, and brains are built and brains are evolutionarily engineered organs that have acquired the capacity to comprehend the principles that govern their existence. We have hereby effectuated the integration of all Being into a seamless Whole. Mind, Matter, and Mathematics are One. Now what of Mortality…
92
There are individuals who feel that their senses separate them from the real, from being. That sense in them infects their other senses. What I see blinds me. What I hear deafens me. That by which I know makes me ignorant. I am ignorant inasmuch, and insofar, as I know. This light before me is a blindfold and hides either a darkness or a light more…More what? Here the circle of that strange reversal closes: knowledge as a cloud over being; the bright world as an opaque growth on the eye. Away with everything, so s o that I may see. s ee. &PAUL VALERY I
All the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and…the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built. &BERTRAND RUSSELLII
“…can’t you you extinguish time? can’t you you comprehend eternity? can’t you conceive of a thing like that—a thing with no beginning—a thing that always was?” was?” &# 44III
Suppose, then, that after the greatest, most passionate, vividness and tender glory, oblivion is all we have to expect, the big blank of death. What options present themselves? One option is to train yourself gradually into oblivion so that no great change has taken place when you have died. &SAUL BELLOW IV
IExcerpt from Paul Valery’s Monsieur
Teste , 1978, 1989. I Am Not a Christian & Other Essays , 1957, 1976. IIIQuote from Mark Twain’s # 44, The Mysterious Stranger , 1969, 2000. IV Humboldt’s Gift , 1959, 1996. IIWhy
93
94
CHAPTER VI ILLUSIONARY IDENTITY & THE MEANING OF MORTALITY
___________________________________
The focus of this, the final chapter of M4, is nothing other than the final phase of existence—death. Our approach shall be practical, rational and soterial. I shall shoulder the burden of explaining the ‘osiric’ implications of the theoretical edifice we have been so assiduously assembling. In short, I intend to explain (or, more humbly, to suggest) what the aforementioned facts, claims and philosophic doctrines—Immateriality and Proto-Percipience in particular—have to do with mortality and the attenuation of existential angst. The undergirding arguments are somewhat convoluted, so I am inclined to summarize and simplify them as best I can at the outset. Preliminarily, I shall give my intellectual assent to the theory of the Modular Mind. This theory holds that consciousness is contingent upon the intricate interplay of myriad modules or neural networks, each operating with appreciable autonomy. It is the aggregate effects of these modules that mediate consciousness, awareness and our conception of ourselves as individuals. When these modules malfunction, consciousness collapses. It is this contingency of consciousness, tenuously tethered to innumerable networks nestled in the nervous system, that illustrates the illusory nature of the psyche. Because the psyche is superficial, inherently illusory, I argue, it ought to be abdicated, disavowed as an integral aspect of one’s innermost essence. How then does one disavow the delusory dimensions of the psyche? Surely it cannot be effectuated by fiat, a mere act of will. Rather, such a thing must be persistently practiced in pursuance of proficiency. Practice entails ascesis—an exercise in expurgating images, ideas and emotions from one’s mind in an environment devoid of substantial sensory stimulation, the intent of which is to attain a state of 95
detachment, a state wherein one de-identifies with one’s self . What then remains when one successfully forsakes the psyche, when one succeeds in sacrificing one’s self so to speak? Something simple, I suggest; something sublime. This simplistic, sublime state is the source of the psyche, the source of consciousness, the source of the phenomenal world. It is immaterial, elementary, and, ostensibly, eternal. If it is possible to identify intimately with this enduring adamantine essence, it is commensurately possible to defy death, to deprive it of its profound perniciousness and eradicate existential angst. This is essentially what the sages of the Indus surmised and canonized in myriad Sanskrit sutras, some of which we shall survey; this is the ideal emulated by enlightened Egyptians in their image of the individual existing in accordance with Order ( Maát ), whom they denominated ger (“the still man, the silent man”) or rek (“the man of knowledge)I; so too may this sublime state which we seek comport with the truest conception of the Greek eudemonia and the Epicurean idea of ataraxia . In short, ours is a hieratic heritage— we aim for an ideal envisaged by the ancient Illuminati but with an understanding undergirded with knowledge never before assembled in such an impressive, awe-inspiring array. What we have hitherto done is provide a compelling evidentiary basis for the notion that reality is illusory and inherently immaterial and, further, that awareness is an irreducible aspect of the phenomenal world. We shall now delve into neurology, but only to a depth demanded by sheer necessity. The Modular Mind: The View from Neurology It should come as no surprise to empirically-oriented individuals that specific neurological structures in the brain govern particular mental processes and that injuries or insults involving specific structures in the brain impair or abolish particular mental processes. What else would one reasonably expect? Divorced from the dilemma of I Allen JP. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs . 2 nd Edition, 2010.
96
dualism, the dependency of mental phenomena on the operations of the brain is not the least disconcerting. “[W]e now appreciate”, writes neuroscientist and Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, “that all cognitive abilities result from the interaction of many simple processing mechanisms distributed in many different regions of the brain….Perception, movement, language, thought, and memory are all made possible by the serial and parallel interlinking of several brain regions, each with specific functions.” While we can be comfortable with the composite, contingent character of the processes enumerated by Kandel in the preceding passage— perception, movement, language, thought, and memory—we cannot be entirely content with a contingent, composite concept of the self. And yet, it is evident that we as “individuals” are indeed agglomerations of multifarious mental modules. As Kandel writes in his classic work, Principles of Neural Science : The most astonishing example of the modular nature of representational mental processes is the finding that our very sense of ourselves as a self-conscious coherent being—the sum of what we mean when we say “I”—is achieved through the connection of independent circuits, each with its own sense of awareness, that carry out separate operations in our two cerebral hemispheres….[E]ven consciousness is not a unitary process.I Kandel’s conclusion rests chiefly upon commissurotomy research conducted principally by fellow Nobel laureate Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, Sperry, Gazzaniga and a cadre of colleagues conducted and analyzed commissurotomy operations collaboratively and independently over a span of a quarter century. Commissurotomy entails cutting one or more of several bands of fibers connecting the cerebral hemispheres, the principal one being the corpus callosum (L. hard body). These operations were executed to alleviate intractable seizures which I
Kandel ER, Schwartz JH, Jessell TM (Eds). Principles of Neural Science , 1991, 2000. 97
seemingly spread from one cerebral hemisphere to the other via connecting commissures (L. commissura , putting together, joining). Of initial interest was the considerable preservation of physiological and neurological functioning seen in the earliest subjects. This apparent neurological normalcy was attributable to neurological redundancy— a substantial symmetry between the two hemispheres, with control of vital brain functions being distributed fairly evenly between both brain regions. It was not long, however, before subsequent patients were subjected to more subtle postoperative examinations and these would reveal what animal experiments had already indicated—that the brain was basically bisymmetric, with each hemisphere receiving and perceiving stimuli separately. As Sperry summarized in an informative review article published in a 1977 issue of The Journal of Medicine & Philosophy : The collected animal evidence supported the conclusion that each of the disconnected hemispheres develops its own private chain of learning and memory experiences that are cut off from, and inaccessible to, recall through the opposite hemisphere. Not only did learning remain lateralized to the one hemisphere receiving the critical sensory input, but also the two hemispheres could be trained concurrently to perform mutually contradictory tasks. [Further] the separated hemispheres could be made to perceive two different things occupying the same position in space at the same time.I A curious feature makes human hemispheric lateralization more dramatic and compelling than that of animals—the striking sequestration of linguistic proficiency principally within the left hemisphere. Sperry and his colleagues exploited this species-specific feature in their analyses. They designed experiments enabling information to be projected, selectively, to either of the two I
Sperry R. Forebrain Commissurotomy and Conscious Awareness. Journal of Medicine & Philosophy , 1977. 98
hemispheres. They would then ascertain, through verbal inquisition, which hemisphere exhibited awareness of the stimuli. In his insightful book, The Integrated Mind , Gazzaniga describes the general features and findings of a typical experiment: [I]f a word (such as spoon ) was flashed in the left visual field, which is exclusively projected to the right hemisphere in man, the subject, when asked, would say, ‘I did not see anything,’ but then subsequently would be able, with the left hand, to retrieve the correct object from a series of objects placed out of view. Furthermore, if the experimenter asked, ‘What do you have in your hand?’ the subject would typically say, ‘I don’t know.’ Here again, the talking hemisphere did not know. It did not see the picture, nor did it have access to the stereognostic (touch) information from the left hand, which is also exclusively projected to the right hemisphere. Yet, clearly, the right half-brain knew the answer, because it reacted appropriately to the correct stimulus. That each half-brain could process information outside the realm of awareness of the other raised the intriguing possibility that the mechanisms of consciousness were doubly represented following brain bisection.I It is alarming enough that awareness can be bifurcated by bisecting the brain, but consider the crudeness of commissurotomies—a scalpel simply severs the cross-connecting fibers ferrying signals from one cerebral hemisphere to the other. Might not there be numerous neurological networks whose surgical separation or isolation would reveal an element of autonomous awareness? In humans, language seems to serve an integrative as well as communicative role. Language gives form to our thoughts and feelings. Might not the vocal domain of the brain exert an organizing, integrative influence over other, equally aware, equally autonomous regions of the brain I
Gazzaniga MS & LeDoux JE. The Integrated Mind , 1978. 99
that are merely mute? It bears mentioning that, according to Sperry, each sensory modality that had been theretofore experimentally lateralized—visual, somaesthetic, olfactory and auditory—could be cognitively constricted such that reception of sensory data by one hemisphere transpired agnostically, clandestinely, outside the awareness of the other hemisphere. It seems plausible, therefore, that there exists a separate module for each modality. Is each independently aware? Does the vocal module simply sum the sensory data of all the other modules and assume the majestic mantle of the self ? This is what Gazzaniga astutely suggests: Implicit in the idea that self-consciousness involves, at least in part, verbal consideration of sensorimotor activities is the assumption that the person or self is not a unified psychological entity, so that the conscious verbal self comes to know the other selves through overt behavior. In other words…there are multiple mental systems in the brain, each with the capacity to produce behavior, and each with its own impulses for action, and these systems are not necessarily conversant internally….[T]he verbal system seems to encode information in its special way, and the other mental systems do the same. So when information is encoded by other than the verbal system, the person is not consciously aware of the information.I Thus, when bilateral communication is disrupted, the dominant hemisphere disavows data that does not comport with its cardinal capacities. To impress upon the Reader the generality of this phenomenon, it bears mentioning that interhemispheric communication can be disrupted pharmacologically as well as surgically. Neurosurgeons Juhn Wada and Theodore Rasmussen demonstrated this in a series of simple experiments conducted during the period 1948-1954, the results of which appear in a 1962 issue of I
Ibidem.
100
the Journal of Neurosurgery Neurosurgery . The impetus for their investigations was the desire to spare the speech capacity of individuals undergoing surgery for the alleviation of seizures. Such surgeries involved ablation or excision of specific segments of the cortex. Clearly this procedure could produce disastrous results if it were to extirpate speech structures. In right-handed individuals the speech centers are customarily consigned to the left hemisphere—the converse is true for left-handed individuals. This rule is instructive not invariant. The investigators therefore thought it prudent to develop a technique that would definitively determine the dextrality of selected surgical candidates. Their technique entailed anesthetization of one or the other cerebral hemisphere. While the subject was awake, an sodium amytal anesthetic ( sodium ) would be injected via the paired common carotid artery into the corresponding hemisphere, right or left. As anatomy would have it, the injection affected ipsilateral intellectual functions and contralateral motor functions. [Efferent motor fibers from one cerebral hemisphere terminate on spinal neurons whose processes extend to and innervate the opposite side of the body.] When the anesthetic was injected into in to the right hemisphere of righthanded individuals, paralysis was produced on the left side while intellectual effects were negligible and fleeting (e.g. momentary interruption of the counting that commenced during pre-injection on the investigators command). Since linguistic functions, as we have noted, are localized largely (though not exclusively) in the left hemisphere of right-handed individuals, this effect was to be expected. These subjects were also able to accurately name objects when asked by the examiners. When, however, anesthetic was injected into the right hemisphere of left-handed individuals, paralysis was produced on the left side while intellectual functions faltered— that is, subjects ceased counting and dysphasia developed. This effect was also anticipated. Indeed, it was the intent of the study to elicit this very outcome, serving as it did as a confirmatory test of linguistic lateralization. Some things were surprising, however—if not to the investigators themselves then to those more removed from the mundane medical facts. The most surprising findings were as follows: (1) the subjects whose dominant hemispheres were anesthetized could be prompted to resume counting (which they had ceased
101
immediately after the injection) at the behest of the examiners (2) those same subjects could carry out commands from the examiners to move their non-paralyzed extremities (3) the subjects with dominant anesthesia retained an ability to respond “yes” or “no” to the examiner’s queries and (4) the subjects, after the effects of the drug dissipated, were unaware of their partial paralysis or their inability to name objects. From our perspective, the last listed finding is the most intriguing. It suggests that all the events of the experiment ensued outside the individuals’ awareness or, more specifically, outside the awareness of the vocal hemisphere. Clearly some entity within the “individual” was aware when it carried out movements of the ipsilateral extremities on command and some entity within the “individual” was aware when it responded affirmatively or negatively to the queries of the examiners. This entity could comprehend language but could not name objects. This would seem to indicate that the ability to execute willed actions is not the exclusive province of a single mental entity. The dependency of one’s identity upon the independent operations of multiple neurological structures is decidedly disconcerting. If I lose my capacity for speech, I am am mute. If I lose my sight, I am am blind. If I lose my hearing, I am am deaf. I am am the subject of each of the aforementioned impairments. But if my very identity is dependent upon distinct, divergent structures or neural networks, most of which operate outside my awareness, then I am inherently divisible and the very notion of identity disintegrates. Identity implies singularity, but the mind manifests multiplicity. Who am I ? Am I not a unified, indissoluble, integrated, autonomous, individuated entity? I am not says Gazzaniga: The mind is not a psychological entity but a sociological entity, being composed of many submental systems. What can be done surgically and through hemisphere anesthetization are only exaggerated instances of a more general phenomenon. The uniqueness of man, in this regard, is his ability to verbalize and, in so doing, create a personal sense of
102
conscious reality out of the multiple mental systems present.I We have seen that interhemispheric communication can be disrupted surgically and chemically. Now we shall consider the possibility that the links between the modules that mediate psychic integration can be severed psychologically, through the exercise of one’s own will or otherwise. The Modular Mind: The View from Psychiatry Included among the classes of psychological syndromes delineated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a cluster of conditions termed Dissociative Disorders. They are collectively characterized in the Manual’s most current edition as follows: “The essential feature of the Dissociative Disorders is a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception. The disturbance may be sudden or gradual, transient or chronic.” Though the Manual enumerates five such disorders, we shall concern ourselves with but two— Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Depersonalization Disorder (DD). Conventionally called multiple personality disorder, DID is characterized by the perception that one’s conscious mind is comprised of two or more discernible identities that commonly take control of one’s behavior. In terms of etiology, abuse and psychosocial stress are considered probable precipitating factors. Describing the diagnostic features of this mental malady the Manual notes the following: Dissociative Identity Disorder reflects a failure to integrate various aspects of identity, memory, and consciousness. Each personality state may be experienced as if it has a distinct personal history, self-image, and identity, including a separate name. I
Gazzaniga & LeDoux, 1978.
103
Usually there is a primary identity that carries the individual’s given name and is passive, guilty, and depressed. The alternate identities frequently have different names and characteristics that contrast with the primary identity….Alternate identities are experienced as taking control in sequence, one at the expense of the other, and may deny knowledge of one another, be critical of one another, or appear to be in open conflict. In DID there is a bifurcation or multiplication of the self into multiple personalities whereas in DD the individual experiences a disintegration of the sense of self as such. What links the two is dissociation of the normally integrated, unified sense of self. The diagnostic and descriptive features of DD are delineated as follows: The essential features of Depersonalization Disorder are persistent or recurrent episodes of depersonalization characterized by a feeling of detachment or estrangement from one’s self. The individual may feel like an automaton or as if he or she is living in a dream or movie. There may be a sensation of being an outside observer of one’s mental processes, one’s body, or parts of one’s body. Various types of sensory anesthesia, lack of affective response, and a sensation of lacking control of one’s actions, including speech are often present. The individual with [DD] maintains intact reality testing (e.g. awareness that it is only a feeling and that he or she is not really an automaton)….Derealization may also be present and is experienced as the sense that the external world is strange or unreal….[P]eople may seem unfamiliar or mechanical…. While it is certainly defensible to doubt the definitiveness of these supposed disorders, there seems little justification for dismissing them outright. Let us therefore assume (guardedly albeit) that they
104
exist. Does it add to the integrity of our conceptual edifice? It would seem so. Dissociative disorders can be conceived as psychological counterparts to commisurotomy and cerebral anesthesia. All involve disintegration of the devices, modules, or connections that seem to subserve self-identity. Clearly, a correct characterization of the mind or the self cannot exclude the physical, chemical, and psychological dimensions. Commisurotomy reveals the physical dissolubility of the self; cerebral anesthesia reveals the chemical dissolubility of the self; dissociative disorders reveal the psychological dissolubility of the self. In this tentative analysis there is a certain symmetry and logical coherence that cannot easily be dismissed. We are therefore inclined to accept that dissociation can be effectuated psychogenically. Of greater practical import is whether it can be effectuated willfully . The DSM accepts this supposition as indicated in its clarifying statement distinguishing DD from known methods of self-detachment: “Voluntarily induced experiences of depersonalization or derealization form part of meditative and trance practices that are prevalent in many religions and cultures and should not be confused with Depersonalization Disorder”. It is this very topic—volitional self-dissociation through meditation—that shall occupy our interest in the succeeding section. Mind, Meditation & Mahapralaya Grief is the emotional accompaniment of bereavement which is, in turn, the state of being bereft or deprived of something or someone of vaunted value. Does it not seem that the more avidly one clings to a prized possession the more misery its loss elicits? And is it not so that when one recognizes that a particular possession is not truly his but a borrowed item bestowed upon him for only a fleeting moment that his reaction to its requisite relinquishment causes less consternation? For most, the self is a possession prized more than any other and the self-dissolution that death dictates is Man’s most daunting dilemma. But what if the self, the persona, the ego, could be rationally regarded not as the essence of one’s being but only a transient transmogrification of Mind—the proto-mental substance
105
that suffuses the Cosmos? What if one intimately identifies oneself with this ostensibly eternal entity? Would death not be subdued, its sharp sting stultified or soothed? This has been the inveterate aim of Indian ascetics for ages. Each of the established systems of Indian philosophy or dar %anas as they are customarily called—Sankhya, Jainism, Buddhism, Yoga and Vedanta—have as their goal the alteration of the psyche of the adherent such that he no longer identifies himself with the gross physical body but with a subtle essence that is eternal, indestructible and serves as the source and support of the self. A survey of each of these systems is beyond the scope of this treatise, so we shall be selective, concerning ourselves only with those isolated ideas particularly pertinent to our present undertaking. Indeed, so prescient, so pregnant are the latter two dar'anas—Yoga and Vedanta—that we shall focus our thoughts primarily on these and secondarily on interspersed ideas of ancient Egyptian origin along with consonant conceptions culled from the philosophically rich “Western” tradition. Vedanta actually denotes a body of literature encompassing the Sanskrit scriptural sutras known as the Upanishads and the epic tale known as the Bhagavad Gita . The etymology of the word Upanishad is itself instructive. As explained by Hindu hierophant Swami Nikhilananda in his translation and explication of the ancient text: The word Upanishad has been derived from the root sad , to which are added two prefixes: upa and ni . The prefix upa denotes nearness and ni totality. The root sad means to loosen, to attain, and to annihilate. Thus the etymological meaning of the word is Knowledge, or Vidy (, which, when received from a competent teacher, loosens totally the bondage of the world, or surely enables the pupil to attain (i.e. realize) the Self, or completely destroys ignorance, which is responsible for the deluding appearance of the Infinite Self as the finite embodied creature.I I The Upanishads, Volume I. Swami Nikhilananda (Translator), 1949.
106
Quite explicitly then, the millennia-old Upanishads purport to exposit knowledge, the acquisition of which allegedly illuminates the true nature of the Self. From our vantage, we are concerned with the veracity of this supposed knowledge and its ultimate “osiriologic” applicability. First, it must be stated at the outset that the compilation of the Upanishads commenced over 2,500 years ago and that the metaphysical underpinnings of Vedanta are arguably coeval with the emergence of the Indus Valley civilization—that is, upwards of 4,000 years ago. Therefore, one ought not turn to Vedanta for insight into the nature of biological life, matter, energy, space, time or the machinations, origins and fate of the Cosmos and its constituents— the Ancients have little of scientific worth to say on these matters to denizens of the 21st century. But the sages of the Indus have much to say on the matter of the mind and that of mortality. The mind is, after all, amenable to analysis through the faculty of introspection—a resource readily accessible to Indian investigators. What is more, the mind is the medium between the world, replete with its myriad misfortunes, and the ever-present peril of death imposingly arrayed against the solitary individual. Everything we covet and condemn, esteem and eschew impresses itself upon our minds. If one can control one’s mind, one can, in a sense, control the totality of reality or at least modulate one’s perception thereof. This, of course, is not unique to the Indian outlook. Epicureanism is, as it were, predicated upon the pursuit of ataraxia —an imperturbable state of serenity secured by the intentional attenuation of irrational anxiety. NeoPlatonists such as Plotinus promulgated the practice of mental mastery through strenuous self-discipline in order to secure a state of supreme tranquility. Stoics such as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius counseled that consummate control of the mind conduces to contentment. What is rather unique to the Indian approach is its methods of control—meditation and identification. Indian ascetics developed techniques of intensive introspection aimed at investigating the nature of the mind and, more importantly, gaining mastery over its operations by controlling its perceptual and conceptual contents. Practitioners of these meditative techniques sought to secure the cessation of spontaneous cerebration and facilitate suppression of somatic sensation. The means by which this
107
featureless form of meditation, this ‘vacuous cerebration’, is executed is threefold: (I) the assumption of a fixed, immobile posture; (II) the intentional inhibition of inhalation such that each successive breath is rendered more and more shallow to the point of minimally requisite respiration; and (III) the concerted, yet passive, act of expunging all images and thoughts from the mind. Asana , pranyama and ekagrata are the respective Sanskrit appellations appended to the aforementioned exercises, the execution of which properly define the discipline of Yoga. Yogic meditation requires exceptional mental resolve and repetitive iterations for lengthy intervals of time to attain the merest modicum of mastery, so natural it is for the unrestrained, mundane mind to meander meaninglessly from thought to thought, image to image, emotion to emotion. Marked meditative awareness is ephemeral for a novitiate such as I and words are incapable of capturing completely its beatific essence; I have attempted a description nonetheless, for it is germane to our present discussion. It is as though the mind and body dissolve into an amorphous, ethereal substance engulfing the entirety of eternal space. There is no notion of dimensionality, no perception of length nor width nor depth, neither a feeling of being “here” nor “there” but one of being everywhere and nowhere at once. There is no sense of being fully conscious, and yet no sense of being unconscious—one might describe it as semi-conscious or pseudo-conscious or merely aware . There is an awareness of one’s own being, but for fleeting moments the awareness of all else evanesces. It is as if the substance of one’s mind engulfs and subsumes the Cosmos in some eerily dark and infinite abyss. And yet, despite this supreme isolation, despite this illogical intimation of simultaneous cosmic integration and disintegration, there is a sense of sedateness. The act of inducing a state in which the Self is conceived as disintegrating into oblivion is given a name in the esoteric systems of Yoga. It is called the Mahapralaya , the great dissolution: “Creation exists from all eternity” states one Yoga scholar “and can never be destroyed; but it will return to its original aspect of absolute equilibrium…in the great final resorption, mahapralaya ”.I It is the explicit aim of the Yogin to IEliade
M. Yoga: Immortality & Freedom , 1969. 108
obliterate the conception of the phenomenal, physical self along with the phenomenal, physical world, “to abolish creation by reincorporating all forms in the primordial Unity”.I And yet, in the midst of the nigrescent nothingness, known as N%n by the ancient Egyptians, awareness was allegedly imbedded.II This awareness, as explained elsewhere, was considered coeval with Creation and lay latent within it. The Archetypal Awareness was deified by Kemetic cryptographers and given the apt name Amen (“The Hidden One”). The ancient Egyptians believed that the world, the biosphere, the ecosphere, the self and the myriad gods of their pantheon issued forth from N%n—nebulous, inchoate, inert matter. It is annunciated by the resurrected spirit of the deceased in the Egyptian Book of the Dead : I came into being from unformed matter, I came into existence as Khepera [the revered god whose name signifies evolution]….I grew in the form of plants, I am hidden in the tortoise. I am of the atoms of every god.III The deceased—redeemed and resurrected in the form of Osiris, Lord of Death—awakens to find himself imbedded in the murky depths of the primordial abyss and speaks thusly: What is this to which I have come into….Surely without water it is, without air it is, deep doubly, darkened doubly, remote doubly. He who liveth in it is in peace of heart.I The assumption of this consecrated state symbolically parallels the destruction of the phenomenal world, for the self and the Cosmos IIbidem . II
The word nu in Egyptian denotes will, thought, intention, &c. according to Budge’s An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (1920, 1978). It would seem, as intimated elsewhere, that the Greek nous (mind) is derived therefrom. IIIBudge W (Translator). The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani , 1967.
109
are conceived as inextricably bound and essentially identical. The Osirified Soul says: I am but doing away [with my creation] when earth came forth from Nun…out of the watery abyss like unto its former state. I am fate and Osiris. I have made my transformations….I I have introduced the seemingly superfluous subject of Egyptian cosmogony in the interest of intellectual continuity. I mean to suggest that there is something valuable in the recognition that distinct cultures, separated temporally and geographically, conceived of Creation issuing from a supremely simple state, human consciousness being an advanced efflorescence of an elementary awareness that suffused all substances and, most importantly from our vantage, death entailing disintegration of the individual self as it is subsumed by the Universal Self, whether known as Atman or N%n. Consider the ideas originated by the ancient Egyptians to conceptualize the creation of the cosmos. In one of several brilliant essays on Egyptian metaphysics, the learned linguist James P. Allen explains that the undifferentiated substance from which the universe emerged was thought by the Egyptians to exhibit a five-fold character, each of such import as to warrant veneration, indeed deification. These are as follows: Nunu : inertness
Amenu : hiddeness Heheu : infiniteness
IIbidem .
110
Keku : darkness
Tenemu : lostness
This Egyptian ethos elegantly encapsulates all that is essential to the psychic experience of meditation. When the ascetic descends into deep meditation, he experiences a state of mental inertia ( nun ). He feels himself lost ( tenem ) to all external reality, deeply hidden ( amen ) in a dark ( kek ) realm that is seemingly infinite ( heh ) in space and time. It is tempting to equate this sublime, simplistic state with the essence of the mind and the origin of the universe as thought and Being itself seem indissolubly bound in the mind of Man. So long as Being persists, the Illuminati of the Egyptian priesthood may have mused, the Soul of man must endure. Of central importance in this exhilarating exposition on Osiriology is the fact that the dissolution of the individual self is accepted by the adept with a sense of serene surrender. The sagacious Socrates exuded such steadfastness in anticipation of his imminent demise and this detached state was undoubtedly ensured by his belief in the immortality of the soul and the attainability of absolute enlightenment only upon emancipation from the corporeal constraints of physical embodiment. So says Socrates: Then when does the soul attain truth?—for in attempting to consider anything in company with the body she is obviously deceived….Then must not true existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?....And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure,—when she takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it, when she has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being?....And in this the
111
philosopher dishonours the body; his soul runs away from his body and desires to be alone and by herself….I This implicit prescription to “take leave of the body”, to pursue that state wherein “the mind is gathered into herself”, wherein the soul ceases to be troubled by sensory perceptions, wherein the mind is devoid of “bodily sense or desire”, to aspire “after true being”, is essentially an exhortation to meditation. Explicitly, the above passage from Plato’s Phaedo pertains to death and the desirability of the soul’s severance from the body for the philosopher, for the true lover of wisdom. Implicitly, however, it adumbrates the ideals of meditation as the following excerpt indicates: And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body…the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can;—the release of the soul from the chains of the body?II This Platonic “purification” parallels meditation in essential respects and reveals the introspective underpinnings of the “Western” philosophical tradition. That the aforementioned ideas (or elements thereof) are reconcilable with reason is also important for we Moderns who laud logic above all else. Finally, it may suggest that introspection, wedded with intuition and reason, can elucidate aspects of existence that are less accessible to empirical investigation. Egyptian and Indian theosophy are essentially animistic as were certain Western schools of thought in their earliest incarnations. With some justification, animism is abjured as a primitive prelude to more advanced theological concepts. But when I think of fundamental particles and the sense in which they are “aware”, I cannot help but speculate that I II
The Dialogues of Plato, The Phaedo. Benjamin Jowett (Translator), 1952, 2007. Ibidem .
112
the self-imposed, minimalist mental state of meditation is somehow akin to the primal, elemental awareness of elementary particles. Clearly, conscious minds are capable of complex cogitation. But we have the capacity to consciously, willfully, though admittedly incompletely, suppress thought. Perhaps this ‘vacuous cerebration’, this ‘mental mahapralaya’, enables one to glimpse, however vaguely, the manner in which quanta are aware. It must be reiterated that our minds, our brains, are composed of these individually protopercipient particles. Can we quiet the mind enough to apprehend the emanations of their aggregate awareness? And is this aggregate awareness, this collective quantum consciousness, singular in its essence? Is this why fundamental particles are, in certain respects, indistinguishable and intertwined? Is this why deep meditation induces a simultaneous sensation of disintegration into an infinite whole and integration into an indissoluble, infinitesimal One? Is this the revealed meaning of the hallowed Hindu hypostasis, “Brahman is Atman”—Brahman being the fundamental essence of the Universe, Atman being the fundamental essence of the Self, the substance of the Soul? Perhaps. But I shall desist in this discursive digression. The major point is as follows. Meditation of the sort described above approximates a state wherein consciousness is virtually devoid of content. There is nothing mystical here as the same can be said of deep sleep. What differ are the elements of awareness and willfulness. Whilst absorbed in meditation one is aware that one’s mind is devoid of images and ideas and it is the intent of the adherent to induce such a state. As the practitioner expurgates ideas, images, and emotions from her mind, awareness does not abate. But who is aware? Vedanta maintains that the Atman, the innermost Self of the individual, is aware. Moreover, Vedanta roundly rejects the equation of the personality or psyche with the Self. Accordingly, it maintains that when the person dies, when the body decays and the mind disintegrates together with its memories, propensities and vagarities, the Self survives. Thus the Atman persists while the personality perishes. Let us not proceed without evaluating the merits of this contention from the vantage of modern science and reason, if only in a preliminary, perfunctory manner. The matter of which the brain is presumed to be composed is in essence immaterial. The immaterial
113
particles of which the brain is composed are possessed of properties, among which is the exhibition of awareness. Integrated, complex consciousness and cogitation is contingent upon the interplay of innumerable neural networks, composed of cells, which are composed of molecules, which are composed of atoms, which are composed of quasi-sentient subatomic particles. Death undoubtedly disrupts this hierarchically ordered array but it does not destroy the elementary awareness that is an irreducible aspect of “matter” itself. For, as immortalized in the lucid lines of Lucretius, “…there must be things possessed of an immortal essence. Nothing can disintegrate entirely into nothing.”I This “immortal essence”, we adduce, is irreducibly aware. In effect, Vedanta says to the aspiring ascetic, ‘identify with this, the elemental awareness, the Atman, for this is eternal and indestructible’. Similarly, the Egyptian adherent who identified himself with “the atoms of every god” gained “peace of heart” by the realization that he would be reincorporated into the primal Void from whence he emerged and to which all things would return. As this treatise has attempted to demonstrate, what were once the suppositious speculations of a few sapient seers now has an empirical, rational basis. One needn’t have faith in the pronouncements of ancient priests, philosophers or mystics; one need only evaluate the rational, scientific bases of the claims enumerated in this treatise. Confining our focus to the present chapter, this is my major claim: The self is illusory . This is so because our conception of self rests upon the idea of unity . Ample evidence indicates that the self is a composite construction comprised of multifarious modules that, through their intricate interactions, collectively create the concept of self. Certainly we conceive of ourselves as unified entities. I do not maintain that this perception is false. It simply is not fundamental. In some sense, therefore, it is not real . To perceive a pencil as bent when immersed in a glass of water is not false, it simply is not fundamental. To regard it as issuing from the alteration of incident rays of light upon the retina is fundamental and intellectually satisfying. That which is fundamental, I aver, is ILucretius
(c. 98-c. 55 BCE), The Way Things Are . Rolfe Humphries (Translator), 1952, 2007.
114
inherently intellectually satisfying for ardent seekers of Truth. So, if the self is indeed illusory, what shall we do with this ostensibly expendable construct? We should, I propose, do what the Ancients instructed us to do long ago: dispense with it. Relinquish (or at least loosen) our hold on our ephemeral, illusory identity. What then shall we replace it with? Nothing. Or as close to nothing as one can conceive. Imagine a mind devoid of ideas, sensations and emotions. Imagine consciousness devoid of content. Embrace it, internalize it, cultivate it, commune with it. This is the Void. This is the essence of Being. Tat tvam asi (Thou art thus) says the Chhandogya Upanishad . The extent to which one succeeds in equating one’s essence with the Void is the extent to which one overcomes the fear of death. Solace in the dissolution of the individual self unto the Universal Self is something the sages of the Nile Valley and the Indus Valley shared and it is a lesson that may ameliorate our ignominious age. But the abolition of the fear of death may be a vapid victory for those who see such stoic asceticism as espoused by dispassionate priests, yogins and philosophers as vitiating the vitality of life. Admittedly, the thanostic ramifications of this treatise are poignant but not entirely palatable and therefore devoid of populist appeal. After all, though we have made a defensible case for immortality, it is not analogous to the immortality of the comparatively palpable Judeo-Christian “soul”. In his Meditations , Rene Descartes wrote of his speculations regarding the immortality of the soul: …[T]hese arguments are enough to show that the decay of the body does not imply the destruction of the mind, and are hence enough to give mortals the hope of an after-life, and…the premises which lead to the conclusion that the soul is immortal depend on an account of the whole of physics. It was prescient indeed for Descartes to foresee that physics would affirm the immortality of the soul. It is, however, doubtful whether Descartes would have considered our conception of “soul” as synonymous with his. I argue for the immortality of the innermost “essence” of the individual—an essence that is ultimately identical
115
with the immaterial essence of the Universe, an essence so elementary, so subtle that it is barely distinguishable from the veritable Void from which it emerged and in which it is embedded. I have invoked the idea of the modularity of mind to buttress my allegation that the persona is a fictive construct that ought to be abdicated. Who wishes to accept the veracity of this claim? Who wishes to accept the superfluity and superficiality of their personality? Who indeed wishes to accept the superfluity and superficiality of matter itself? Who wishes to acknowledge that matter is as fictive as the personalities with which we pathetically parade about? Who wishes to undertake an austere exercise in systematic desensitization through sensorial and cerebral deprivation in order to identify the true nature of their being and commune with the Cosmos? Acceptance and implementation of the ideas espoused in this treatise would require substantial self-conditioning. One must condition one’s mind in such a way that the ascertainment of fundamental Truth is rendered resplendent in itself . As Epictetus instructs, “…we need discipline, in order to learn how to adapt the preconception of the rational and the irrational…conformably to nature.”I Arguably, hedonism is a universal human imperative and the pursuit of momentous knowledge cannot conceivably be justified if it heightens rather than diminishes misery. But alas, the mind is malleable while reality is resolute. It is better to conform one’s consciousness to the constraints of Nature than rend reality in a vain attempt to suit sanguine sensibilities. My importunate entreaty implores all serious thinkers—philosophers, metaphysically-minded Osiriologists, scientists and the elite Intelligentsia that invariably inhabit every land during every epoch of history—to henceforth harken to the arguments advanced herein and commit to contribute to the reconditioning of human consciousness in the old way—one worthy adherent at a time. Each one ought to teach another deemed deserving of this weighty, yet liberating, knowledge. Grief must be reconceptualized as an emotional reaction to the loss of nominally nonexistent entities. It is to the essence of the beloved individual that one ought to be attached and that essence, I maintain, is eternal and IEpictetus
(c. 60-138 CE), Discourses . George Long (Translator), 1952, 2007. 116
identical with one’s own. Similarly, personal death must be conceived as the end of one’s perception of oneself as an integrated individual—a perception that is, evidently, empirically erroneous. This admittedly radical re-conceptualization of reality has, as we have seen, cosmic counterparts. Matter is immaterial, mathematical and rudimentarily aware. We are integral parts of this perplexing Universe, not merely detached observers thereof. If the Universe is not what it once seemed, then we cannot be what we once seemed and death cannot be what we once conceived it to be. Some will surely find solace in this new conceptualization of death, life and Reality while others will eschew it. Whatever the case may be, if ever the ideas presented herein penetrate the minds of men, a choice must be made—a choice not unlike the one described in the Katha Upanishad by Yama, the Lord of Death, in instructing his young pupil Nachiketa: The good is one thing; the pleasant, another. Both of these, serving different needs, bind a man. It goes well with him who, of the two, takes the good; but he who chooses the pleasant misses the end. And for many, eschatology, the “End of ends”, is not at all pleasant. Armed with iron-clad knowledge conferred by modern science, we can foresee the end of the Universe itself. The Osiriologist, indeed the modern man of learning, must come to terms not only with his own mortality and all it entails but with the finitude of the Cosmos itself. What of the fate of the Universe, what has modern cosmology to say of it? The consensus in this, the first quarter of the 21st century, is that the Universe is expanding and it is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. There is, moreover, nothing—no matter, no energy, no force—sufficiently strong to halt its headlong hurtling into oblivion. Inevitably, the Cosmos shall dissipate, dissolve, disintegrate and humanity, perennially preoccupied with pretentious, profane pursuits, shall have long since perished. And yet for those who identify not with the impotent, perishable, phenomenal, personal self, but with the very essence of the Cosmos, that ultimate destruction causes little concern—it is simply the re-equilibration, and re
117
unification of the fundamental Self. For this self is one with the Cosmos and there is no other Reality. The resurrected Egyptian, the man made god-like through secret knowledge speaks thus: I am the lord of eternity….Speaking and silent I maintain an exact balance. Verily my forms are inverted. I am god…from season to season, what is [mine] is in [me]. I am One coming from One.I I believe that we can create an assuaging unction from the amalgam of ancient wisdom, rigorous science and sober philosophy. This is the humble hope of a natural philosopher and Osiriologist.
IThe
Egyptian Book of the Dead , XXXII.
118
A POPPERIAN PERORATION ______________________________________ In affirmation of my intellectual allegiance to the ideas of the inimitable philosopher of science, Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994 CE), I herein offer a succinct summary of our metaphysical system—what I immodestly call the Amen Theory of Metaphysics. More specifically, I wish to delineate simply and explicitly what our theory explains and how, by virtue of this explanation, it arguably supersedes prior theories in being more exhaustive, more rigorous, and more momentous. Moreover, I wish to relate why our theory of metaphysics has a higher “truth content” insofar as it accords most harmoniously with certain observed phenomena and explains disparate data with a paucity of postulates. The elements of the analysis are as follows. I. If fundamental particles are indeed infinitesimal, it follows that they are immaterial. II. If fundamental particles are immaterial, it follows that matter is nonexistent. III. If matter is nonexistent, then dualism is destroyed and therewith the alleged irreconcilability of matter and mind. IV. If fundamental particles are admitted to exhibit an element of awareness, the evolutionary process can be conceived as conducing to the accretion of awareness in certain organisms, culminating in the creation of consciousness. V. If matter is nonexistent, this comports with the observation, estimation, and theorization of the net-zero mass, energy, and spin of the Universe.
119
VI. If matter is nonexistent, this comports with the observational evidence and theoretical reasoning that the Universe began as a singularity and that the “matter” strewn about billions of light-years had its origin in a single infinitesimal point—a problematic postulate if “matter” is accepted as material rather than immaterial. VII. If the nature and behavior of fundamental particles is exhaustively explained by Quantum Mechanics and its wavefunctions, and if fundamental particles and their wavefunctions are identical or inextricable, then Atkins’ Deep Structuralism and our own Constitutionalism—the reducibility of Nature to mathematics— is arguably affirmed. VIII. If the essence of the mind is identical with the elementary substance of which it is composed and if this same substance is in some sense sentient, it explains our inextinguishable intimation of ultimate immortality.
120
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ALLUSIONS As I expressed in my inaugural book, Evolutionary Nutrition , I regard myself as a natural philosopher in the archaic vein—a thinker who cannot conceive of creating a complete philosophical system that is not lived by its originator, that is not pursuant to the practical task of defining and determining how one ought to live one’s life. Some say such systematic philosophizing is dead. If so, it is an opportune occasion for its resurrection. I neither dread death nor loathe life. I bow before no gods nor fear the might of men. I am an avowed ascetic who fasts for 23 hours each day and I forswear feeding upon the flesh of animals, partaking purely of plants and other vegetative organisms. I venerate my body and cultivate its health and strength, though I know it to be corruptible and ephemeral. I subject myself to intense mental and physical discipline in order to promote perseverance and longevity. Why longevity? Because I love life and the few individuals I choose to share it with. I love the Good and consider the pursuit thereof the sole justification for the conscious continuation of my existence. My conception of the Good encompasses Truth, Justice, Beauty, Love and Serenity. To love life and the Good and yet to look at Death unflinchingly, devoid of self-deception, requires fortitude. Such fortitude can come from knowledge or practice or both. Thus, while my ceaseless pursuit of the gratification that is the acquisition of the Good make me a thoroughgoing Hedonist, my asceticism affords me the temperance to endure the innumerable tragedies of life, the inevitable estrangement from all that I love, and my ultimate End. If a single individual could have bestowed upon me the precious wisdom that has taken me a lifetime to gain, I would hold her in the esteem appropriate only to a Goddess, owing to a sense of gratitude, not servitude. Heartily, I grant the keys to this wisdom to all who deign to walk with me or as Rene Descartes would say, “to meditate seriously with me.” Alas, I cannot bequeath to you my wisdom; I can only confer the keys that will unlock the doors thereto. This book is one such key. If I have my way with Fate, there shall be more.
121
